Cambridge Research: It would require simultaneously cutting 72-92% of undersea cables to significantly impact the Bitcoin network

On March 14, PANews reported that a study released by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) shows that the Bitcoin network's resilience to physical infrastructure disruptions is much higher than previously expected. The research, based on 11 years of network data and analysis of 68 verified submarine cable fault events, found that for random failures, it would require the simultaneous disruption of 72% to 92% of multinational submarine cables to significantly affect Bitcoin node connectivity. The study pointed out that among the 68 real submarine cable faults analyzed, over 87% of the events had less than a 5% impact on nodes. For example, a submarine disturbance off the coast of Côte d'Ivoire in March 2024 caused damage to 7 to 8 cables simultaneously, affecting approximately 43% of local nodes, but only about 5 to 7 Bitcoin nodes globally were impacted, accounting for about 0.03% of the network. The Bitcoin network's vulnerability to directed attacks is significantly higher than to random failures. If attackers target critical communication hub cables, affecting only about 20% of key lines could cause similar disruptions; if coordinated interruptions target the custodial service providers with the most nodes (such as Hetzner, OVH, Comcast, Amazon, and Google Cloud), a decline of about 5% in routing capacity could have a significant impact. Additionally, the study found that Tor network nodes accounted for about 64% (in 2025), with their distribution mainly concentrated in countries with strong connectivity such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands, which actually enhances the overall resilience of the network. The research suggests that the Bitcoin community is gradually shifting towards more censorship-resistant infrastructure in the face of internet censorship and geopolitical events, resulting in a characteristic of "adaptive reinforcement" in the network