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Cambridge Researchers Identify Conditions for Significant Bitcoin Network Disruption, 2026/03/16 13:00:35
In order to significantly disrupt the Bitcoin network, it is necessary to incapacitate at least 72% of the undersea fiber-optic cables. This conclusion was reached by researchers Wenbin Wu and Alexander Neumueller from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
The authors examined data from 2014 to 2025 and analyzed 68 documented instances of undersea cable damage. They noted that this is the first study to assess the impact of cable infrastructure failures on the Bitcoin network over such an extended timeframe.
The findings indicated that during random outages, the network remains relatively resilient. The critical failure threshold is found to be between 0.72 and 0.92. This suggests that between 72% and 92% of all international undersea cables must be compromised before more than 10% of the network nodes go offline.
The researchers highlighted that approximately 99% of international internet traffic is transmitted through undersea cables, making them a vital component of the global digital infrastructure.
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They assessed that the network is significantly more vulnerable to targeted attacks on key points of the cable infrastructure. In such scenarios, the critical threshold drops to between 0.05 and 0.20, and pinpoint strikes on essential connections prove to be much more effective than random damages.
An analysis of the 68 incidents revealed that in 87% of cases, less than 5% of Bitcoin nodes were disabled. Such occurrences had minimal impact on the cryptocurrency’s price. Statistical analysis showed nearly zero correlation between cable infrastructure failures and the coin’s value, with a coefficient of −0.02.
The researchers also concluded that the geographical distribution of mining has little effect on the network’s resilience. Its stability is primarily determined by the architecture of the global cable infrastructure rather than the distribution of hash rate across regions.
They estimated that random transcontinental failures do not pose a significant threat to the network. Real vulnerability arises only in scenarios involving coordinated attacks on critical nodes of the global cable system.
Previously, analysts from Ark Invest and Unchained reported that at least one-third of existing bitcoins could be potentially vulnerable to quantum threats, although practical implementation of such threats is still a distant concern.
