DDoS attacks in crypto: Why Bitcoin is practically immune?

Before we dive into the crypto world, we need to understand what a DoS/DDoS attack is. In short: it is when someone floods a server with so much traffic that it collapses and stops working. Imagine 1000 people trying to enter a bank at the same time through the same door.

The first documented DoS attack was in 2000, when a 15-year-old Canadian hacker took down the servers of Amazon and eBay. Since then, this has become common across all types of industries.

The most common methods

Buffer overflow: Sending more data than the system can process.

ICMP Flood: Exploits misconfigured devices to saturate the entire network.

Flood SYN: It opens fake connections on all server ports until it crashes.

And in crypto?

Cryptocurrency exchanges have become favorite targets. Bitcoin Gold suffered a massive DDoS attack right after its launch. But here comes the interesting part: the decentralized architecture of blockchain is practically DDoS-proof.

Why? Because Bitcoin is not a central server. If some nodes go down, thousands of others continue to validate transactions. When the affected nodes recover, they automatically synchronize with the network.

Bitcoin is practically immune thanks to:

• Proof of Work (PoW): Each block is cryptographically secured. To alter the chain, one would need to redo the entire history, which is computationally impossible.
• Distributed hash power: Millions of computers mining simultaneously.
• The 51% problem: Even if someone controlled more than 50% of the hash power, the network would update instantly.

In conclusion: while centralized servers are vulnerable to DDoS attacks, Bitcoin and other decentralized blockchains are shielded by their very nature. It is one of the greatest superpowers of blockchain technology.