Major US pools withdraw, Bitcoin hashrate drops under winter storm pressure

A number of US-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining swimming pools are scaling again operations in response to the intense winter climate that strained the nation’s energy grid.

The cuts have been made after an arctic chilly snap introduced subzero temperatures to a lot of the US.

Arctic climate causes Bitcoin hashrate to plummet

Based on TheMinerMag, the 2 main Bitcoin mining swimming pools serving North AmericaDecreased hashrate by greater than 110 exahash/second (EH/s) in late January 2026.

Foundry USA, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, has seen its hash price plummet. It dropped from practically 340 EH/s to about 242 EH/s late final week.

Luxor additionally recorded a decline, with its hashrate dropping from round 45 EH/s to 26 EH/s. Smaller declines have been additionally noticed in Antpool and Binance Pool. These numbers have since fallen additional.

“Bitcoin hashrate for FoundryUSA alone has fallen by 200EH/s, or practically 60%, since Friday because of continued cuts. Non permanent block manufacturing has slowed to 12 minutes,” TheMinerMag writes.

Hashrate index knowledge reveals that Foundry nonetheless controls round 163.5 EH/s of hashing energy. This accounts for about 22.59% of the entire hashrate of the Bitcoin community. Luxor’s share is 3.01% and the hashrate drops to round 21.9 EH/s.

Bitcoin mining pool. Supply: Hashrate Index

The widespread decline in hashrate coincides with a deep freeze within the Arctic that introduced snow, ice, and excessive chilly, resulting in a pointy enhance in heating demand. Energy grids in a number of states have been strained and utilities issued upkeep requests.

The winter storm left at the least three individuals lifeless and a whole lot of 1000’s of houses with out energy, in keeping with the BBC. Colleges and roads have been closed and flights canceled throughout the nation as “life-threatening” circumstances unfold from Texas to New England.

In a submit on X (previously Twitter), Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset analysis at VanEck, identified the function Bitcoin miners can play in lowering the pressure on the ability grid throughout excessive climate occasions.

“It’s a tragedy that greater than 1 million Individuals are with out energy because of the winter storm that’s hitting the japanese United States. Some public Bitcoin miners have enough manufacturing capability in or close to the affected areas, and a few, similar to CLSK, RIOT, and BTDR, are working with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) “Affirmation of real-time suppression for this storm has not but been obtained, however this mannequin has already confirmed its worth when circumstances worsen,” he wrote.

The decline in hashrate additionally comes amid a continued decline in miners’ reserves. Bitcoin miner holdings fell to their lowest stage since 2010 in January 2026, in keeping with knowledge from CryptoQuant, highlighting rising monetary stress throughout the sector.

Low Bitcoin costs and rising vitality prices have squeezed revenue margins, pushing many miners into unprofitable territory. In response to this, some carriers are reconsidering their enterprise fashions. For instance, Bitfarms has begun reallocating sources in the direction of synthetic intelligence and high-performance computing.

In the meantime, the broader outlook for miners stays troublesome. Electrical energy costs reached a report worth of 18.07 cents per kilowatt hour in September 2025, a rise of 10.5% from January.

BeInCrypto reported that President Trump’s administration’s emergency energy bidding plan will add $15 billion to the brand new era by long-term contracts backed by know-how.

This plan may present long-term aid as new capability comes on-line, however the advantages will take time to materialize. Within the meantime, miners should deal with inexpensive entry to electrical energy and energetic participation in demand response to outlive.