Bitcoin Hashrate Plunges as Texas Miners Forced Offline by Ice Storm

Bitcoin network hashrate, which can also be considered as computing horsepower, has tanked since its October peak. When it drops sharply, it means miners are reducing their activity by voluntarily shutting down machines.

“That’s exactly what we’re seeing today,” observed CryptoQuant analyst ‘Darkfost,’ who said that the hashrate has fallen from 1.133 ZH/s to 690 EH/s in just two days.

Blockchain.com reports a higher figure for the 7-day moving average total hash rate of 950 exahashes per second; however, this is a lagging indicator.

Severe Storm Hampers Hashrate

The analyst said that a severe ice storm is hitting the United States, which hosts about one-third of global Bitcoin mining operations. The extreme cold has forced miners, particularly in Texas, where major players like MARA and Foundry Digital operate, to shut down mining rigs.

The storm is also causing power grid disruptions and electricity cost spikes, leading to longer block times and an expected mining difficulty reduction of around 4.5%.

The US Department of Energy issued emergency orders that allowed Texas grid operators to tap additional backup resources during the cold snap. The analyst warned that this could lead to more selling pressure if miners were forced to sell BTC to cover costs while they wait out the storm.

“This period of stress could even trigger some BTC selling if the storm were to persist, as miners may still need to cover fixed operating costs while waiting for conditions to normalize.”

Analysts have also observed that down-trending hashrates mirror price action, which will not improve until hash power recovers.

Meanwhile, network hashprice, which refers to the expected value of 1 TH/s of hashing power per day, is also at rock bottom at $0.039 per TH/s per day as miners struggle to turn a profit.

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No Recovery For Bitcoin

As if there wasn’t enough crypto FUD, tanking hashrates have prevented any Bitcoin recovery this week. BTC reclaimed $88,500 during the Tuesday morning Asian trading session, but the asset remains down 4.5% since the same time last week.

It remains within the lower bounds of a three-month sideways channel and once again found support, but upside moves are very limited at the moment as bearish sentiment persists.

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