Key Highlights
- The brutal winter storm Fern has barreled across the U.S, leaving Bitcoin mining operations affected severely.
- The impact caused several miners to drop their hashrate in the wake of the storm, leading to Bitcoin network’s block production being delayed by 2 minutes.
- Similar disruptions have occurred in 2021 and 2022 Texas freezes, when miners powered down to prevent broader grid failures.
The winter storm Fern has barreled across the United States, leaving a trail of destruction, including widespread power outages affecting the nation’s mammoth Bitcoin mining operations. The impact is so severe that it caused the Bitcoin network’s block production time to be delayed nearly 2 minutes.
The total hashrate of Foundry USA, one of the largest Bitcoin miners, witnessed a sharp drop of nearly 60% on Friday as the natural calamity hit the firm’s facilities across the country. It plummeted from a peak of nearly 340 EH/s to as low as 242 EH/s, as noted by TheMinerMag.
This represents about 23% of the global Bitcoin network’s mining power going offline, equivalent to roughly 200 EH/s of capacity. As a result, Bitcoin block production slowed to an average of 12 minutes per block, exceeding the network’s target of approximately 10 minutes and temporarily reducing transaction throughput.
Curtailment among mining facilities
Foundry is based in the U.S., and it is heavily reliant on facilities in storm-hit regions like Texas. In the wake of the storm, the firm voluntarily reduced its operations to help stabilize the grid, a practice known as demand response.
Luxor, another major Bitcoin miner in the U.S., recorded a similar decline with its hashrate dropping from 45 EH/s to roughly 26 EH/s over the same period. Combining this with that of Foundry USA, the two pools have seen more than 110 EH/s of computing power taken offline.
This reflects widespread curtailment among miners responding to extreme cold and elevated power demand. Other U.S.-based pools, including those of Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), have also curtailed hashing power.
Such reductions are typically part of collective efforts from the mining community, allowing them to sell electricity back to the grid or avoid operating during peak pricing periods.
“For most operations, staying offline is the economically rational choice during peak stress periods,” Luxor noted in their latest article on X. “Miners can determine whether mining is currently economical by observing their fleet’s energy hashprice.”
Implications for Bitcoin Network Resilience
The event highlights Bitcoin mining’s dependence on regional energy infrastructure and the risks posed by geographic concentration. While Bitcoin’s decentralized design allows miners in unaffected regions, such as parts of Asia, Europe, or other U.S. areas, to compensate over time, such sudden large-scale offline capacity can create short-term security and efficiency concerns.
Although this is not the first time a cold winter has hit Bitcoin mining operations. Similar disruptions have occurred during previous winter events, including the 2021 and 2022 Texas freezes, when miners powered down to prevent broader grid failures.
Despite the hashrate dip, Bitcoin price has shown resilience and it is holding relatively steady amid serious geopolitical implications. At the time of publishing, Bitcoin was hovering near $87,773—down 1% in the past 24 hours—while its trading volume jumped 188% to over $45 billion, as per CoinMarketCap data.
The broader impact of Frenan storm
Since late last week, winter storm Fernan has swept from the southern plains through the Midwest and into the Northeast, stretching approximately 1,800 miles. The Weather Channel within the U.S. and other forecasters have described it as a historic event, with destructive ice toppling trees and power lines up to an inch thick in parts of the South.
The storm has left more than one million households and businesses without electricity due to power outage, with some areas facing multi-day restoration efforts. States including Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and others have borne the heaviest burden.
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