The Bitcoin hashrate recorded a 40% drop this weekend, reaching levels not seen since mid-2025, following a massive winter storm in the United States. The weather event, reported by AccuWeather on Monday, January 26, 2026, forced miners to curtail operations to stabilize the national energy grid while energy demand surged across three dozen states.
The slump, which brought the network’s global computing power to about 663 exahashes per second during Sunday, represents one of the most severe technical disruptions of the last seven months. According to data provided by the CoinWarz platform, the infrastructure began to falter last Friday, highlighting the vulnerability of the sector to extreme weather phenomena sweeping the American continent. However, despite this initial setback, indicators began to show a notable recovery during the early hours of Monday as conditions normalized.
Large-scale operations, including the Foundry USA mining pool, reported a reduction in their processing power of nearly 60%, which temporarily slowed down the production of blocks significantly. This voluntary adjustment, far from being interpreted as a systemic failure, clearly demonstrates the responsiveness of the crypto mining industry to climate emergencies. By coordinating machine pauses, operators allowed power supplies to be redirected toward homes affected by power and snow outages across the country.
American miners lead the response to the energy emergency
Considering that the United States accounts for approximately 38% of global processing power, the massive shutdown of mining farms in Texas and surrounding regions had an immediate global impact. According to reports from Hashrate Index, the nation currently hosts more than 137 active commercial facilities, which operate as a vibrant security engine for the digital ecosystem distributed. Furthermore, this high power density ensures that any climatic alteration in North American territory directly affects Bitcoin’s security metrics on a global scale.
Likewise, researchers like Daniel Batten highlight that load balancing helped prevent critical blackouts, demonstrating that mining technology acts as an efficient electrical regulator and dynamic tool. By absorbing surplus renewable energy in calm times and disconnecting during peak consumption, these processing centers strengthen the resilience of the North American energy infrastructure against disasters. Therefore, this interaction is consolidated as a fundamental pillar for the sustainability of the electrical system in the twenty-first century, integrating renewables better.
How does the massive equipment disconnection impact network security?
On the other hand, sector giants such as Marathon Digital Holdings saw their daily production drop drastically from 45 to just seven units, reflecting the direct operational cost of these energy stabilization maneuvers. Thus, companies like IREN also recorded proportional drops in their daily mining, showing that mining profitability can be conditioned by climatic factors that are unpredictable. However, these temporary losses in revenue are offset by the improved public perception of the industry as a strategic ally for national energy security during crises.
Finally, the recovery observed on Monday, with the network returning to over 854 EH/s, suggests an agile operational normalization after the passage of the storm known as winter storm Fern. This structural flexibility ensures that, despite momentary interruptions and power drops, the system maintains its immutable integrity, allowing for a sustained growth scenario for global Bitcoin mining to be projected. Consequently, the sector reaffirms its commitment to operational stability, ensuring the continuity of transaction processing under any adverse circumstance that may arise in the future.
