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A major Iberian blackout affected 3 countries. Bitcoin expert, Daniel Batten says fast-response mining could’ve stabilized the grid. Could crypto miners be Europe’s missing link to grid reliability?
The massive blackout that affected Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France occurred on Monday, April 28, 2025. The outage began at 12:32 PM local time, when Spain lost approximately 15 gigawatts of electricity. It was about 60% of the country’s total demand. The Spain blackout was a result of a sudden imbalance between electricity generation and consumption.
Now, Marathon Digital Holdings advisory board member and CH4 Capital co-founder Daniel Batten has claimed that the incident could have been avoided. He suggests that fast-response crypto mining infrastructure would have stabilized the network.
Batten, in an X post, explained that large-scale Bitcoin mining might have provided the lacking grid flexibility responsible for the cascading blackout:
The CH4 Capital co-founder referred to Texas' ERCOT grid, where operators can shed as much as 3 gigawatts of Bitcoin mining load in less than a second. Such ability, he explained, stabilizes frequency and prevents outages. ‘Would Bitcoin mining have helped Spain and Portugal? Yes,’ he said.
European regulators continue to probe the technical reason for the failure. The rumours of Russian-engineered Cyberattacks have been eliminated. The event has reopened discussion on how Europe will now support a renewable-heavy grid as it moves toward its 2030 climate targets.
While some users on X agreed with Batten's conclusion, others called for caution, pointing out that such claims can't be validated without field tests. The Bitcoin expert, on the other hand, called on energy planners to factor in crypto mining together with battery storage. ‘It's low-cost, modular, and mitigates excess generation,’ he added. ‘We already have the tools. Let's use them.’
It remains to be seen if David Batten’s claim will be taken seriously by European authorities. Whether or not Bitcoin mining can prevent future Spain-Portugal outages, the incident highlights its rising role in the energy sector.
