A winter storm with extreme conditions is currently hitting the United States, putting a strain on the power grid. In this context, Bitcoin miners are deciding to shut down their machines, leading to a significant drop in the network’s hashrate. Here’s an update…
US Bitcoin miners adapt to the winter storm
The United States is currently facing a winter storm of rare intensity, with frigid temperatures that have caused more than a dozen deaths in recent days. This situation is putting a severe strain on the power grid as it struggles to meet national demand.
In this unique context, Bitcoin miners are deciding—or are being strongly encouraged—to implement a load shedding strategy, which involves unplugging some of their machines to lighten the load on the network. And since the United States is home to the industry’s largest players, this inevitably impacts its hashrate.
A situation highlighted by Ki Young Ju, founder of the on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, on X, with a notable drop of over 30% in this computing power over the last few days, causing it to plunge below the 700 exahash per second (EH/s) level on January 25.
Bitcoin’s hashrate sees a significant drop amid the U.S. winter storm
Faced with this historic storm, the Bitcoin blockchain is operating at a slower pace, following a significant overall drop in its hashrate across all U.S. participants, to the point where block production time has increased to over 12 minutes—compared to an average of 10 minutes under normal conditions—and BTC production has been significantly reduced.
Hashrate of industry leader FoundryUSA drops by 60%
This decline in computing power allocated to the Bitcoin blockchain is particularly affecting certain players in the industry, such as the leader FoundryUSA, which has seen its hashrate drop by a significant 60% since the end of last week—amounting to approximately 200 EH/s on its own.
Other U.S. players in the sector are also seeing notable declines, such as Luxor, which saw its hashrate drop from 45 EH/s to less than 20 EH/s over the same period.
Miner FoundryUSA reports a 60% drop in its hashrate
However, the resilience of the Bitcoin blockchain is already beginning to take effect, with computing power showing a rebound above 900 EH/s over the last few hours and a difficulty adjustment already underway.
This extreme situation demonstrates the Bitcoin mining industry’s ability to rapidly adapt its energy consumption based on the state of the network and the amount of electricity actually available, thereby becoming the key players in its stabilization and increased profitability.
