Bitcoin hash rate drops 10% after US winter storm

Winter storms in the United States have severely dampened Bitcoin mining activity, sending the cryptocurrency’s hash rate down by as much as 10% as operators limit electricity use to ease pressure on strained power grids.

Hash rate is the amount of computing power available to process the transactions needed to keep the Bitcoin blockchain running at any given moment. A rapid drop in hash rate leaves less room for transactions to be processed on the network, increasing the risk of delays before the difficulty resets.

Winter Storm Fernan swept through much of the United States in extreme cold, snow, ice and freezing rain, straining the power grid and knocking out power to more than 1 million residents across several states. The decision comes from the grid operator, which issues conservation warnings.

As a result, major Bitcoin miners have ceased operations or gone offline, triggering a short-term plunge in U.S. hardware in recent years.

It snowed in the U.S. and the blockchain slowed down a bit.

Snowstorms in the US have forced some US-based Bitcoin miners to turn off their miners. And the Bitcoin hash rate is down nearly 40% from three days ago.

Stay safe! pic.twitter.com/tSuhspJbDB

— Arkham (@arkham) January 26, 2026

For example, the computing power of Foundry USA, the largest Bitcoin mining pool by hash rate, accounting for about 23% of global mining pools, has decreased by about 60% from recent peaks of close to 328 exahashes per second to about 139 EH/s.

The need for flexible Bitcoin power demand arises

The ongoing winter storm has reportedly taken approximately 200 EH/s offline across the Bitcoin network, pushing the average Bitcoin outage time beyond the protocol’s goal of 10 minutes. mempool data. Average block time increased to 12 minutes.

This sharp decline reflects the growth pattern of Bitcoin miners acting as flexible, interruptible loads during periods of severe weather.

Because the closure was expected and temporary, fee pressures remained subdued. For the Bitcoin network, the slowdown is mechanical rather than structural.

Despite the sharp decline, price of bitcoin There was little direct response to the storm. Over the weekend, BTC price briefly fell below $86,500, extending a broader downtrend that erased gains made when the price reached $97,000 earlier in the week.

However, Bitcoin has recovered above $88,000 and is currently trading at $88,217 as of 2 AM EST.

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