{"id":206281,"date":"2025-10-11T21:03:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/206281\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T21:03:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:03:21","slug":"afghanistan-internet-outage-marks-need-for-decentralized-web-in-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/206281\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan Internet Outage Marks Need For Decentralized Web In Blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan\u2019s recent nationwide internet outage underscored a critical weakness in the world\u2019s leading decentralized blockchains: their dependence on centralized internet providers that remain vulnerable to government intervention and technical failures.<\/p>\n

The country suffered a near-total internet shutdown that lasted about 48 hours before connectivity was restored on Oct. 1, Reuters reported<\/a>. The disruption was reportedly ordered by the Taliban administration, though officials later blamed \u201ctechnical issues\u201d involving fiber optic cables.<\/p>\n

While blockchains aim to provide people with a public, censorship-resistant network for value transfers, their reliance on centralized internet providers makes these use cases challenging during outages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Afghanistan blackout is not just a regional connectivity crisis: It is a wake-up call,\u201d according to Michail Angelov, co-founder of decentralized WiFi platform Roam Network. \u201cWhen connectivity is monopolized by a handful of centralized providers, the promise of blockchain can collapse overnight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The nationwide internet and mobile data services outage affected about 13 million citizens, according to a September report<\/a> from ABC News. This marked the first nationwide internet shutdown under the Taliban rule, following regional restrictions imposed earlier in September to curb online activities deemed \u201cimmoral.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taliban denied the ban, blaming the internet outage on technical issues, including fiber optic cable problems.<\/p>\n

\"\"Source: ProtonVPN<\/a><\/p>\n

Iran has also been facing internet censorship issues since the start of its conflict with Israel.<\/p>\n

The Iranian government shut down internet access for 13 days in June, except for domestic messaging apps, prompting Iranians to seek out hidden internet proxy links for temporary access, The Guardian reported<\/a> on June 25.<\/p>\n

Related: $11B Bitcoin whale returns with $360M BTC transfer after 2 months<\/a><\/p>\n

DePIN projects are building decentralized internet infrastructure<\/p>\n

The Afghanistan blackout adds momentum to calls for decentralized connectivity solutions<\/a> that remove single points of control. <\/p>\n

Decentralized wireless networks are emerging as alternatives to centralized internet providers, as part of a broader technological shift known as a decentralized physical infrastructure network, or DePIN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Roam aims to build a smartphone-powered decentralized wireless network that crowdsources mobile signal measurements to create a \u201cliving map of connectivity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with the project\u2019s incoming eSIM implementation, this enables devices to automatically select the best available internet options, including public carriers, a private mesh or a peer-powered local network.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoam users can see in real time what works where: No guesswork during outages,\u201d which ensures a connection even when \u201ccentralized backbones fail,\u201d said Angelov<\/p>\n

Related: $10B in Ethereum awaits exit as validator withdrawals surge<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"World Mobile ecosystem statistics. Source: worldmobile.io<\/p>\n

World Mobile is the largest decentralized network with 2.3 million daily active users, spanning over 20 countries, according to data<\/a> from worldmobile.io<\/p>\n

The project surpassed $9.8 million in total revenue in August, which represents revenue distributed across AirNode operators, stakers and other contributors.<\/p>\n

\"\"Helium Network Statistics. Source: world.helium.com<\/p>\n

Helium<\/a> is the second-largest decentralized wireless network, with over 190 countries and 112,000 total hotspots worldwide. It claims<\/a> to have over 1.3 million daily users on its decentralized network.<\/p>\n

Users are incentivized to host a hotspot for internet coverage through Helium (HNT<\/a>) token rewards.<\/p>\n

Advocates say blockchain technology\u2019s promise of financial freedom and censorship resistance cannot be fully realized until the underlying internet itself becomes more distributed.<\/p>\n

As Angelov put it, \u201cIf decentralization stops at the protocol layer, we haven\u2019t really solved the problem \u2014 we\u2019ve just shifted where the control lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magazine: Most DePIN projects barely even use blockchain \u2014 True or false?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Afghanistan\u2019s recent nationwide internet outage underscored a critical weakness in the world\u2019s leading decentralized blockchains: their dependence on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64,63,237,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-206281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}