The mass blackouts that affected Spain, France and Portuguese countries on April 28, 2025 tested the resilience of a variety of infrastructures, including Bitcoin Red (BTC).
Lack of electricity Influenced millions of users and homescausing competition in telephone networks, internet access, public transport, flights, hospitals, banks, traditional stores, and more.
In that context, Spanish President Pedro Sanchez explained that the authorities investigated the cause and “the hypothesis has not been ruled out.” Additionally, Antonio Costa, chairman of the Council of Europe, designated it. “There are no signs of a cyber attack.”.
And how did Bitcoin affect this blackout?
Power outages in these countries in Europe led to Bitcoin miners who operated there, given their lack of electrical networks and internet connectivity.
According to data from the Czech mine pool, the Bitcoin network’s computational power (hash rate) recorded a slight decline over April 27, from 822 EH/s (exahashes per second) to 807 EH/s. but, This set-off seems largely unlinked to major European power outages.
Despite the fact that Bitcoin hashrates has been gradually decreasing since April 17th, metrics measuring total mining-specific processing power within the network did not show a significant decline after a blackout.
In that way, the data shows it Miners in affected countries do not concentrate related parts of global computing power. At the time of this phrase, Spain and France have donated 0.05 EH/s to their total computing power (0.006%), while Portugal has contributed 0.2 EH/s (0.025%).
Miners located in countries such as the US, Russia and China lead Bitcoin mining with estimated stocks of 36%, 15% and 13% respectively. On the other hand, if the power outage had been happening at any of these sites, the outcome would likely have been different.
For example, not because of an incident of this nature, but because a Chinese government decision in 2021 banned BTC mining; Global hashrate redistributionbecause miners moved towards other areas. According to the brain, the ban in Asian countries that began in May 2021 led to BTC Hashrat at around 165 EH/SA of 98 EH/s. 40% drop.
Bitcoin’s recovery in the absence of electricity
Despite energy disruptions in Europe, the Bitcoin network has demonstrated its ability to continue working thanks to its decentralized design. This is because the nodes and miners are globally distributed, maintaining an active network, ensuring that blocks are less than 10 minutes and confirmed transactions continue.
He also explained that encryption from X accounts could potentially be a transaction with BTC by users in the affected region. Even without internet access or electricityaspects that highlight technical solutions developed to work at disadvantageous conditions.
Projects like Locha Mesh, Txtenna, Kryptoradio have shown that Bitcoin is possible using radio waves and networks mesh (Spanish Mesh Network), a technology that allows communication between devices without relying on traditional Internet connections.
network meshfor example, radio waves such as those used by LORA and Gotanna antennas can transmit data over long distances with minimal energy consumption, whereas close devices are connected to each other to form a distributed network.
These solutions typically require specific configurations, such as using full Bitcoin core nodes, the most used software in Bitcoin that emits and validates the entire network, or open source wallets such as Electrum, which allows you to manage private keys and sign transactions locally.
Additionally, companies such as Blockstream and Gotenna have developed systems that utilize satellite signals and networks. mesh Sends a BTC transaction. For example, the blockstream satellite Transmit network data via satelliteallowing users to receive information from the network and prepare transactions without an internet connection.
These technologies represent technical challenges for the average user, but because configuration requires specialized hardware and specific knowledge, They offer a viable alternative in chaotic situations As a massive power outage where traditional communication infrastructure usually collapses.
Meanwhile, traditional banks and shops were facing major disruptions in areas affected by the blackout. Electric and Internet-dependent ATMs, electronic payment systems, and online banking platforms temporarily operated in these regions and affected local users.
