The Bitcoin network’s hashrate hit a seven-month low over the weekend as a massive winter storm battered the United States with snow and ice, forcing miners to scale back operations to stabilize the energy grid.
US weather forecasting company AccuWeather reported on Monday that a major winter storm affected 34 states over the weekend, causing widespread snow, ice and power outages affecting 1 million energy customers.
Bitcoin (BTC)’s network hash rate started declining on Friday, reaching 663 exahash per second (EH/s) by Sunday, according to data from mining data tool CoinWarz. This is a drop in hash rate of over 40% in two days.
However, it has since started to recover and remained at around 854 EH/s as of Monday.
“About 40% of the world’s Bitcoin mining capacity has been taken offline in the past 24 hours due to extreme winter weather,” Oregon-based Bitcoin miner Abundant Mines said in a statement.
“As energy demand soars, some mining operations are reducing activity to ease pressure on local power systems and support critical infrastructure. This flexibility is a built-in strength of Bitcoin mining, allowing us to quickly scale back as needed and restart as soon as conditions permit.”
sauce: rich mines
The United States is the largest contributor to global Bitcoin mining power, with the country estimated to account for nearly 38% of the world’s hashrate, according to Bitcoin mining data platform Hashrate Index.
A 2024 report from the Federal Energy Information Administration also found that there are over 137 crypto mining facilities in the United States.
Miners helped stabilize the power grid
Bitcoin miners help stabilize the power grid through load balancing by quickly scaling up or down power requirements. Miners can install them near wind and solar power facilities to ramp up power, absorb excess power, and shut it down when the grid becomes strained.
Bitcoiners such as Daniel Batten, a Bitcoin environmental, social and governance researcher, said on XPost on Monday that Bitcoin mining and demand response worked in tandem to stabilize the power grid in Texas during extreme weather.
sauce: Pierre Roshard
Related: Foundry USA’s hashrate drops by up to 60% due to US winter storm suppression
Winter Storm Impacts Bitcoin Production
The storm has also slowed daily Bitcoin production at some of the largest U.S. miners, CryptoQuant’s Julio Moreno said, citing data from the analytics platform.
Some of the largest US miners, such as Marathon Digital Holdings, mined 7 Bitcoins, down from 45 Bitcoins the previous day, and IREN fell from 18 Bitcoins to 6 Bitcoins.
The US storm has slowed down daily Bitcoin production for several miners. sauce: Julio Moreno
magazine: 7 reasons why Bitcoin mining is a terrible business idea