‘Bitcoin Keeps Hashing’ Amid Global CrowdStrike Outages: Mining CEO

‘While the world continues to reel from computer outages triggered by a faulty software update deployed by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, it’s business as usual for Bitcoin due to its decentralized nature and independence from centralized providers and infrastructure.

Late Thursday night, CrowdStrike sent the technology world into a tailspin, as countless systems that relied on its security tools for their Microsoft-based systems were knocked offline. Major systems—including government offices, banks, and airlines—went down as computer screens displayed the dreaded blue screen of death.

In an update posted on Friday, CrowdStrike said it is actively working with customers impacted by a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” CrowdStrike said in a statement. “Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

“We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in a letter to customers and partners. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives,” he said.

Bitcoin was safe, however, because it doesn't rely on Microsoft software, said SunnySide Digital founder and CEO Taras Kulyk.

“If you look at the Bitcoin hash rate chart, [Bitcoin] was completely unaffected because most, if not all, Bitcoin miners are using Linux-based frameworks,” Kulyk told Decrypt in an interview. “It's hilarious because banks globally have been shutting down because of this server issue, and yet, Bitcoin keeps hashing, and I hate to use the term, but, ‘tick tock, next block.’”

Launched in 2021, SunnySide Digital is a wholesale distributor of hardware and services for data centers and digital mining hardware and infrastructure.

“It's really about the infrastructure that [the blockchains] rely on,” Kulyk said. “If it's needing like .NET frameworks, obviously, it's Microsoft. If there's a lot more opportunity for Linux-based hardware to be used in software systems to be used for the network, then you basically know it can be immune to this type of server shutdown.”

For Kulyk, the difference between using a Microsoft or Linux system comes down to the principles of strong privacy rights, decentralization, and the empowerment of individuals against centralized authority.

“What a lot of people forget is that Bitcoin miners are traditionally the folks that do not like the existing system, the existing large-scale enterprise players,” Kulyk said. “The open code of Linux is a lot more preferable to [Windows], viewing everything that you're doing on the hardware that you control. Ubuntu is the operating system for most miners when you actually get to the folks that, you know, subscribe to the ethos of the cypherpunks from back in the day.”

CrowdStrike declined a request for comment from Decrypt.

While CrowdStrike rolled back the update, the repurcussions of the error are far reaching. CrowdStrike (CRWD) stock, meanwhile, dropped 11.10%, according to Yahoo Finance.

The blockchain industry overall appeared unaffected by the crash, with the cryptocurrency market up 4.6% for the day, and Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $67,224, according to CoinGecko.

“Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike,” Kurtz said. “As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.