U.S. Winter Storm Causes Mining Farms to Decrease Load, Largest Network Hashrate Pool Foundry's Hashrate Drops by 60%

BlockBeats News, January 26th, according to The Block, a winter storm sweeping across the United States has significantly reduced Bitcoin mining activity, causing a considerable portion of the network's hashrate to go offline. To alleviate the strain on the power grid, mining operators have proactively reduced their electricity load.

This storm, named "Fernan," has brought extreme cold, snow, and freezing conditions to most parts of the U.S., resulting in over 1 million residents experiencing power outages, with energy grid operators issuing energy-saving alerts.

During the extreme weather, the largest pooled hashrate in the network, Foundry USA, has seen a drop of around 60% in connected hashrate since Friday. According to miningpoolstats.stream data, its hashrate has decreased from a recent peak of around 328 EH/s to about 139 EH/s. Foundry currently holds approximately a 23% share of the global mining pool hashrate market.

An estimated 200 EH/s of hashrate is offline across the network, causing the average Bitcoin block time to exceed the protocol's targeted 10-minute mark. Mempool data shows that the average block time has risen to around 12.4 minutes, and the next Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment is expected to decrease by 15%. This adjustment is a mechanism designed to restore the block production pace after a sustained drop in hashrate.

Other U.S.-based mining pools have also been affected. Another major North American pool, Luxor, has seen its hashrate drop from around 45 EH/s to about 26 EH/s. Antpool and Binance Pool have also experienced minor hashrate declines, indicating that the total network reduction may exceed 110 EH/s, despite the lower concentration of these pools in the U.S.