Winter storms briefly hit Bitcoin’s hashrate

Severe winter weather in the U.S. has highlighted an often-overlooked risk to Bitcoin’s network: the power grid. Large-scale mining facilities, especially in states like Texas, frequently participate in programs that allow grid operators to ask them to shut down during periods of peak demand or system stress.

When a major cold snap drives up heating demand and strains electricity infrastructure, miners may either lose power or voluntarily curtail operations. The result is a temporary drop in active mining machines, which can show up as a dip in Bitcoin’s hashrate and slightly slower block times.

This effect recently drew attention as several U.S.-linked mining pools, including industry giant Foundry, saw noticeable short-term declines in apparent hashrate. Because many mining operations are geographically clustered and connected to the same power markets, a single regional storm can impact a meaningful share of global mining at once.

While short-term hashrate estimates are noisy and don’t always reflect lasting changes, real curtailments during extreme weather can briefly reduce network computing power. Bitcoin continues to function as designed, but the episode underscores a key point: even a digital monetary network ultimately depends on very physical infrastructure — and the weather that affects it.