Bitcoin’s network, operational since 2009, has long posed the question of its resilience against physical infrastructure disruptions—a query that has now been rigorously explored by researchers at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. In a groundbreaking longitudinal study, the team examined 11 years of peer-to-peer network data in relation to 68 verified submarine cable fault events, providing compelling insights into the network’s robustness.
The study reveals a significant finding: between 72% and 92% of the world’s submarine cables would need to fail simultaneously for Bitcoin to experience serious node disconnections. This research comes at a time of heightened awareness around infrastructure vulnerabilities, particularly with ongoing disruptions in key regions like the Strait of Hormuz. The findings establish the first empirical benchmark for understanding Bitcoin’s resilience against potential online threats.
Through 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations across the dataset, the researchers discovered that random submarine cable failures typically have a negligible effect on the Bitcoin network. Over 87% of the examined cable fault events resulted in less than 5% impact on the nodes. The most significant single incident, which occurred in March 2024 when seabed disturbances off Côte d’Ivoire damaged multiple cables, caused a disruption of 43% of regional nodes but only impacted 5-7 Bitcoin nodes globally—about 0.03% of the entire network.
Another notable observation is the disconnect between cable failures and Bitcoin’s price volatility; the correlation was found to be essentially zero at -0.02. This indicates that disruptions to network infrastructure are overshadowed by everyday market fluctuations.
Crucially, the study highlights the difference between random and targeted attacks. While random failures require a substantial 72-92% of submarine cables to be compromised, a deliberate attack on critical cables—those identified as chokepoints in global connectivity—lowers the threshold to 20%. Furthermore, targeting top hosting providers, such as Hetzner, OVH, Comcast, Amazon, and Google Cloud, necessitates just a 5% reduction in routing capacity to achieve similar impacts.
This distinction reveals two distinct threat models: random failures, typically natural events, and coordinated attacks that could stem from state-sponsored actions or regulatory challenges. The researchers mapped these adversaries, emphasizing that while Bitcoin can withstand random disruptions, more sophisticated threats pose credible risks.
The study also documents Bitcoin’s evolving resilience over the years. From 2014 to 2017, the network exhibited remarkable resilience, with critical failure thresholds hovering around 0.90-0.92. However, during the period from 2018 to 2021, as network concentration increased, resilience decreased, reaching a low of 0.72 amid peak mining activities in East Asia. The subsequent China mining ban in 2021 led to a redistribution of mining operations, which improved resilience to 0.88 in 2022, although it is projected to settle at 0.78 by 2025.
A particularly intriguing finding relates to the use of TOR, a technology that masks the physical location of nodes. As of 2025, 64% of Bitcoin nodes utilize TOR, raising concerns about potential fragility due to geographic concentration. However, the researchers’ four-layer model contradicted this notion, showing that TOR relay infrastructure is primarily located in Germany, France, and the Netherlands—countries rich in submarine cable connectivity. This geographic dispersal means an attacker targeting TOR infrastructure would face significant challenges due to the difficulty in disconnecting these areas.
The study frames this adaptability within the community as “adaptive self-organization,” noting the increase in TOR adoption following events that necessitated greater censorship resistance, such as the internet shutdown in Iran and the Myanmar coup.
Amid current events disrupting infrastructure in the Middle East, these findings become particularly pertinent. The researchers conclude that unless there are coordinated, deliberate attacks on critical cables and hosting providers, Bitcoin is likely to continue its operations unaffected by random infrastructure failures.
