Submarine internet cables are critical infrastructure, yet Bitcoin remains remarkably resilient to their failure. A recent study analyzed 11 years of peer-to-peer traffic and 68 real-world cable disruptions to test the network’s stability.
Unmatched Network Resilience
Research suggests that Bitcoin is almost immune to standard undersea cable outages. For a significant network disconnection to occur, attackers or accidents would need to sever at least 72% of all global submarine cables simultaneously.
The Real Vulnerability: Cloud Providers
While physical infrastructure is robust, the network faces a different threat: centralized cloud dependency. Many Bitcoin nodes run on services like AWS and Google Cloud. A targeted attack or outage affecting these major providers would pose a much greater risk to Bitcoin’s functionality than physical cable damage.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
