Bitcoin Hash Rate Falls 10% After Winter Storm Knocks US Miners Offline

A sweeping US winter storm has led to a significant pullback in Bitcoin mining activity, knocking the cryptocurrency’s hash rate down by 10% as operators limit electricity use to ease pressure on strained power grids.

Hashrate is the amount of computing power available to process transactions required to keep the Bitcoin blockchain running at any given moment. When the hash rate drops sharply, the network has less room to process transactions, increasing the risk of delays before the difficulty resets.

Winter Storm Fernan has swept across large parts of the US, amid extreme cold, snow, ice, and freezing rain, straining power grids and leaving more than 1 million residents across different states without power. The decision comes from grid operators issuing conservation alerts.

As a result, major Bitcoin miners had to shut down operations or were forced offline, triggering one of the sharpest short-term declines in US hardware in recent years.

For instance, Foundry USA, the largest bitcoin mining pool by hashrate accounting for about 23% of the global mining pool, has seen its computing power drop by roughly 60%, a fall from a recent peak near 328 exahashes per second to about 139 EH/s.

A Need For Flexible Bitcoin Power Needs Arises

Due to the ongoing winter storm, an estimated 200 EH/s has gone offline across the Bitcoin network, pushing the average bitcoin block time above the protocol’s 10-minute target, according to Mempool data. Average block times drifted toward 12 minutes.

Such a significant drop reflects the growing pattern in which bitcoin miners act as flexible, interruptible loads during periods of extreme weather.

Because the shutdowns were expected and temporary, fee pressure remained contained. For the Bitcoin network, the slowdown remains mechanical rather than structural. 

Despite the sharp drop, Bitcoin’s price showed little direct reaction to the storm. During the weekend, the price of BTC briefly dipped below $86,500, which extended a broader pullback that erased gains earlier in the week when prices touched $97,000.

However, Bitcoin has recovered to trade above the $88,000, now at $88,217 as of 02:00 a.m. EST.

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