📌 Winter storm in the U.S. sends Bitcoin hashrate lower as miners curtail to protect the power grid
⚠️ In late January 2026, an arctic blast brought heavy snow and extreme cold, straining regional power systems and triggering widespread outages. As heating demand surged, multiple Bitcoin mining operations reduced load or temporarily powered down to prioritize electricity for households and critical services.
🔎 The standout signal was a sharp, short-lived drop in network hashrate, showing that a meaningful chunk of mining capacity went offline at the same time. Some readings showed pronounced declines at major pools, with Foundry among the hardest hit, highlighting the “geographic concentration” angle when severe weather hits key U.S. mining clusters.
💡 Curtailment wasn’t purely defensive—it can be economically rational. During peak stress, power prices and demand-response incentives can spike, making it more profitable for miners to curtail and sell electricity back to the grid (or earn curtailment credits) than to keep mining while energy costs surge.
⏱️ On the protocol side, the impact showed up mainly as slower block production versus the standard pace, while the network remained stable thanks to difficulty adjustment. That makes the shock largely temporary, with conditions typically normalizing as weather improves and capacity returns.
✅ The broader takeaway is mixed: mining can act as a flexible load that helps stabilize grids during emergencies, but the episode also underlines the risk of concentrated hashrate in weather-exposed regions. If extreme events become more frequent, seasonal hashrate volatility may turn into a regular variable the market watches.
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