Bitcoin survives most cable cuts, but targeted attacks could cripple it

Researchers at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance analyzed 11 years of peer-to-peer network data and 68 verified submarine cable failures and found Bitcoin’s physical infrastructure far more resilient than commonly assumed. Running 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations per scenario, they concluded that between 72% and 92% of inter-country submarine cables would need to fail simultaneously before significant node disconnection occurs, and that Tor adoption actually strengthens the network.

The study shows graceful degradation rather than collapse: over 87% of the 68 real-world cable faults caused under 5% node impact. The largest single event, seabed disturbances off Côte d’Ivoire in March 2024, knocked out 43% of regional nodes but affected only 5–7 bitcoin nodes globally, roughly 0.03% of the network.

Cable failures had essentially no correlation with bitcoin’s price (‑0.02). Risk depends on intent.

Côte d’Ivoire

bitcoin, submarine cables, cable failures, cambridge centre, p2p network, monte carlo, tor adoption, node disconnection, seabed disturbances, network resilience