Bitcoin Hashrate Drops 30% Due to Texas Miner Outages

Bitcoin miners in Texas were forced to shut down their farms due to extreme cold, causing the Bitcoin hashrate to drop by 30%. 

The hashrate of Bitcoin is the total computing power used to mine the cryptocurrency. It is measured in hashes per second (H/s).

According to data from BTC.com and Blockchain.com, the global Bitcoin hashrate fell from 629 EH/s (exahashes per second) on January 11 to 440 EH/s on January 17.

This decline occurred after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization that manages the Texas power grid, called for energy conservation due to extreme cold.

Many mining companies in Texas, including Marathon Digital, Riot Platforms, and Iris Energy, have increased their capacity in the state in recent years, attracted by cheap electricity and local incentives.

According to MiningPoolStats, about half of the hashrate decline was due to Foundry Pool, one of the largest mining pool operators. Marathon Digital's mining also declined, as did the hashrate of the Luxor Mining pool.

Many miners in Texas, including Marathon, shut down their operations in recent days to support the state's power grid and residents during the cold.

"Bitcoin miners are, among other things, a technological solution for the energy sector," said Marathon's Vice President of Corporate Communications, Charlie Schumacher. "In Texas, they serve as a load that can be reduced in a matter of minutes to free up energy for other purposes during a crisis, which is what happened now," he explained.

While the drop in Bitcoin hashrate could lead to a decline in the mining of new coins, it could also lead to a reduction in the network's energy consumption.