Inside Bitcoin’s 24 hour race to survive a global internet blackout

If major internet exchange hubs globally failed simultaneously, Bitcoin would immediately partition based on remaining reachable hashrate (e.g., Americas, Asia/Oceania, Europe/Africa). Block production would continue independently in each partition, causing ledgers to diverge by hundreds of blocks within 24 hours, exceeding routine reorganization limits and rendering regional confirmations provisional. Local mempools and fee markets would split, forcing exchanges to pause withdrawals. Upon reconnection, nodes would reconcile to the chain with the most cumulative work, leading to orphaned blocks and requiring hours for services to rebuild mempools and re-enable settlements. If connectivity is never restored, the partitions become permanent, independent Bitcoin networks, each with its own difficulty adjustment, supply cap exceeding 21 million total coins, and diverging economic realities, requiring users to manage split coins and maintain separate accounting for each regional chain.

(Source：CryptoSlate)