The Impact of Nuclear War on the Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Network
Bitcoin's price could fall 10% to 80% if nuclear war escalates from local to regional or continent-wide.
The Bitcoin network would be severely weakened with only about 1,000 active nodes remaining.
Bitcoin [BTC] has attracted a large following, especially among investors who see it as a hedge against inflation and political instability, such as the ongoing war between Israel and Iran. But what happens if the world descends into a nuclear apocalypse?
Many wealthy businessmen like Mexico's Ricardo Salinas and politicians like US Vice President J.D. Vance have invested in BTC and cryptocurrencies as a hedge.
Even BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, sees BTC as equal or better than gold as a hedge against global instability. However, analysts predict that digital gold may not survive a nuclear catastrophe.
Bitcoin vs. Nuclear War
First, it's important to understand the Bitcoin network — miners act as security, while nodes run the protocol to ensure the authenticity of transactions.
As of mid-2025, the network has 22,129 accessible nodes (including mining nodes), distributed globally.
Source: NewHedge
According to public and official statistics, the United States controls 10.2% of BTC nodes, followed by Germany (5.8%) and France (2.6%).
These three countries are all nuclear superpowers, while China only possesses about 0.15% of the nodes according to official information. However, nearly 64% of the nodes are of unknown origin or hidden from the public.
According to ChatGPT's analysis, China may be controlling the majority of these nodes, as most operators have used VPNs and gone underground after the state banned BTC mining in 2021.
Source: ChatGPT
Scenario Analysis
If a large-scale conflict occurs, resulting in a global network outage of 60-80%, the number of Bitcoin nodes could drop from 22,000 to 1,000, causing transaction confirmation failures, directly affecting the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm.
In a war between Russia and NATO, nodes in the United States and Germany would temporarily go offline, but P2P connections could recover within weeks. However, a global nuclear war would cause the network to enter a “catastrophic failure” state, resulting in the failure of consensus algorithms.
The scale of the war and its impact on BTC prices will vary. However, market psychology and investor sentiment also play a significant role in shaping prices.
Source: ChatGPT
Small scale war
In limited conflicts, BTC can still be viewed as a hedge, as it is currently in the Israel-Iran tensions. The price has remained above $100,000, despite war rhetoric from leaders, including US President Donald Trump.
Bitwise's Chief Strategy Officer even emphasized that:
“This geopolitical moment is why Bitcoin was born.”
Other analysts, like QCP Capital, warn that a larger regional war could disrupt oil supplies, increase global inflation, and put BTC at risk.
However, according to ChatGPT's prediction, a local nuclear war would create strong price fluctuations, reflecting the unclear market sentiment.
In a global doomsday scenario, when the internet and BTC are wiped out, the exchange of food and items will become much more important. BTC will become meaningless and likely cease to exist.
Source: ChatGPT
Expected price reduction scenario
In a local attack, BTC price could drop only 10% to 30%, equivalent to a drop of up to 98K-75K USD based on current price. This is considered stable in an uptrend.
In a regional nuclear war, prices could drop by 30% to 60%, which would equate to $75K-$42K when most network nodes are shut down.
In the event of a continent-wide collapse, the price would drop by 60% to 80%, bringing the price down to $42K-$20K. However, if there are remaining active nodes, the price could rebound sharply if the world overcomes the challenge.
In a severe conflict situation, having only about 1,000 active nodes will easily lead to a protocol split or fork, making Bitcoin vulnerable to network protection.
In the event of a complete internet shutdown, BTC could completely disappear from the market, or its price could fall to zero. The world would still choose barter and food as the top priority for survival.
The bottom line is, Bitcoin could become worthless if nukes destroy the network and protocol nodes. However, if there are satellite reserves and enough active nodes, there is still a chance that the network will remain decentralized and secure enough to recover from a war.
And with statistics showing that by June 2025, the probability of a nuclear bomb exploding this year is around 18%, it's still too early to worry about a full-blown war involving Bitcoin.
Source: https://tintucbitcoin.com/lieu-chien-tranh-nha-nhan-tieu-diet-bitcoin/
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