Travelers sit on the stairs as they prepare to spend the night at the Atocha train station, … More following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Madrid (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP) (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

The 2025 blackout cost Spain over €1.6 billion and exposed deep failures in centralized systems. Blockchain, DePIN, and AI may hold the key to resilient infrastructure.

When the lights went out across Spain, Portugal, and parts of France this past month, it wasn’t just an interruption in electricity—it was a full-system failure. Power disappeared, but so did connectivity. Cell towers shut down. Wi-Fi collapsed. People in subways and city centers were suddenly offline, unable to reach emergency services or loved ones.

In a moment, digital life vanished—and with it, a very real sense of safety, agency, and awareness.

This was not just a power outage. It was a wake-up call.

What we experienced was a cascading infrastructure breakdown. One core system failed—and the rest followed. That chain reaction exposed a gap we can no longer afford to ignore. In our interconnected world, where almost everything—transport, communication, commerce, and healthcare—relies on digital infrastructure, losing connectivity isn’t just inconvenient. It’s dangerous.

This wasn’t just a temporary inconvenience—it came with a staggering price tag.

In Spain alone, the blackout cost an estimated €1.6 billion in lost economic activity, with some forecasts suggesting it could trim 0.5% off the country’s quarterly GDP. Businesses shut down, transportation systems froze, and productivity halted. For an increasingly digital and interconnected economy, every minute offline compounds into real-world consequences.

The financial loss is only one part of the picture—the greater cost may be the trust lost in our ability to maintain essential infrastructure.

Outdated Infrastructure Isn’t Built for a Digital World Like DePIN Is

Europe’s blackout showed how outdated and centralized our foundational systems have become. Across the EU, more than 30 percent of the electrical grid is already over 40 years old. By 2025, that figure could reach 90 percent. These systems were designed for a different era—before the internet, before AI, before decentralized renewables and connected devices shaped every part of life.

Expanded European Union (EU). (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Now, demand has surged past what these networks were ever built to support. And with the Technology and Communication sectors projected to consume 13 percent of global electricity by 2030—nearly double today’s levels—the strain is only going to increase.

Connectivity, once a luxury, is now essential. It underpins public safety, economic activity, and even emotional well-being in moments of crisis. Yet our current systems treat it as secondary. When the grid goes down, connectivity often follows. That must change.

DePIN: A Community-Powered Infrastructure Layer

This is where decentralized infrastructure comes into play—specifically, DePIN: Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks. These are systems built not from the top down, but from the edges in. They use blockchain to enable individuals and communities to contribute their own resources—routers, sensors, compute power, or energy—into shared infrastructure that operates autonomously, securely, and without central control.

DePIN is not a theory. It’s a real movement, and the use cases are growing by the day.

Projects like XYO provide decentralized location data through a network of independently operated nodes. This geospatial oracle system can operate even if GPS satellites or centralized mapping servers go down. In a blackout, that kind of local, verifiable, real-time location data becomes incredibly valuable—for emergency services, logistics, and public coordination.

As Marcus Levin, Co-founder of XYO, said, “Europe’s recent outage highlights the vulnerability of relying solely on centralized infrastructure. Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) like XYO provide resilience by distributing infrastructure, across stakeholders and independent nodes. This redundancy ensures that critical services—like energy, emergency response and logistics—remain operational even when traditional systems fail.”

Uplink is working to decentralize internet connectivity itself. By enabling individuals to share excess Wi-Fi bandwidth and register routers as decentralized nodes, Uplink is building a global, community-powered connectivity layer. In the case of an outage that disables mobile networks, Uplink routers—often backed by batteries or operating on local mesh—can keep neighborhoods connected.

As Carlos Lei, Co-Founder & CEO at UpLink, told me that “our centralized infrastructure is aging and fragile. DePIN offers a decentralized, resilient alternative using blockchain and community power. When one node fails, others keep the network alive. Uplink’s 1.5M+ routers show how communities can stay online even in outages. The future demands fault-tolerant, multi-layered systems—and it starts with decentralized infrastructure.”

Carlos Lei, Co-Founder & CEO at UpLink

Carlos Lei

Helium, one of the early pioneers in this space, created a decentralized wireless network using individually owned hotspots to support IoT devices and, more recently, 5G infrastructure. Their model proves that community participation can scale robust, reliable infrastructure far beyond what any single provider could achieve alone.

Why Blockchain Is the Backbone of Resilience

What makes these systems effective isn’t just decentralization. It’s the coordination power of blockchain. These networks don’t rely on a central controller to direct traffic or manage behavior. Blockchain makes it possible for thousands—or even millions—of nodes to work together securely, with transparency and accountability built in.

It also enables trustless automation. Smart contracts can reroute traffic, reward participation, and ensure uptime without human intervention. This creates systems that are not only more resilient but also more scalable and sustainable.

Blockchain isn’t just the foundation of crypto—it’s emerging as a vital infrastructure layer for real-world systems that need to be trustworthy, distributed, and always on.

AI Makes Infrastructure Intelligent and Adaptive

Decentralization gives us distribution. Blockchain gives us trust. AI gives us intelligence.

Artificial intelligence adds the predictive, adaptive layer that centralized systems so often lack. Imagine AI monitoring localized energy loads, forecasting failures, and rerouting power through decentralized solar nodes before a blackout cascades. Or AI analyzing mesh networks in real time and shifting connectivity to keep communities online.

AI turns infrastructure into a living, learning system—one that doesn’t just survive failure but adapts to it.

It also enhances efficiency. Community-powered infrastructure can operate far more effectively when AI balances demand, anticipates usage, and intelligently manages resources. The combination of AI and blockchain creates a powerful loop: smart, autonomous systems with built-in transparency and accountability.

It’s Not Just about Tech like DePIN but Policy

This isn’t just about technology—it’s about leadership. Governments must rethink how infrastructure gets built, funded, and regulated. Instead of relying solely on top-down modernization efforts, they should open the door to community-driven innovation. Regulatory sandboxes, resilience mandates, and incentives for decentralized deployments can catalyze real progress.

Private sector leaders also have a role to play. Telecoms can integrate decentralized fallback systems into their existing networks. Logistics firms and insurers can build continuity plans around DePIN. Web3 platforms can power the infrastructure layer behind critical public systems. The opportunity isn’t just to mitigate risk—it’s to unlock new business models that are more participatory, efficient, and adaptive.

DePIN Infrastructure And AI Are the Future of Resilience

The blackout in Europe was a preview of what’s to come if we stay on our current path. But it was also a spotlight on what’s possible. Blockchain, AI, and decentralized infrastructure aren’t just buzzwords—they’re building blocks for a more resilient society.

We need to treat connectivity like the critical infrastructure it is. That means investing in redundancy, intelligence, and participation—not just hardening old systems, but empowering new ones. The most resilient infrastructure won’t be centralized, brittle, and opaque. It will be distributed, adaptive, and owned by the many—not the few.

The future of infrastructure is already being built. It’s time we scale it, support it, and make it the standard—not the exception.

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