A study published in February 2026 examined Bitcoin’s resilience to submarine cable failures. Researchers Wenbin Wu and Alexander Neumueller from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance found that nearly three-quarters (72%-92%) of undersea fiber optic cables would need to fail before Bitcoin's network experiences more than 10% disconnection.
The Bitcoin network, however, is more vulnerable to targeted attacks on specific subsea chokepoints, with a critical failure threshold of just 5%-20%. Tor routing increases resilience, as its relay infrastructure is concentrated in Europe, a region with extensive cable connectivity. Historical data shows that 87% of 68 verified cable fault events caused less than a 5% node impact, indicating near-zero correlation between cable events and Bitcoin prices.
