Severe frost that swept across the US in January 2026 led to significant disruptions in the operation of mining farms. Many operators were forced to temporarily reduce the load on the power grid, which noticeably affected the overall hashrate of the Bitcoin network.
This is reported by Business • Media
Significant Drop in Bitcoin Hashrate
According to analytical data, over 35% of the Bitcoin network’s computing power is currently offline. The largest mining pool, Foundry USA, experienced a hashrate drop of nearly 200 EH/s, representing about 60% of the losses compared to the previous week. As a result, the average time to create a new block in the network temporarily increased to 12 minutes, which is a significant deviation from the standard time of 10 minutes.
Shutdown of Mining Installations and Impact on the Industry
CEO of StandardHash, Lean Liu, reported that approximately 1.3 million mining devices have been shut down in total. Experts estimate that the total Bitcoin hashrate has decreased by about 30% in a short period, equivalent to a drop of 260 EH/s.
“Due to extreme winter storms in the US, several mining farms across the country faced power outages. The total Bitcoin hashrate has decreased by approximately 30% in a short period, corresponding to a drop of about 260 EH/s,” emphasized the expert.
Co-founder of Stranded Energy Investments, Adam Ortolf, noted that over 35% of the hashrate remains unavailable due to abnormal weather conditions. He also suggested that this situation could mark the beginning of a scaling back of T4-type data centers in the US.
It is worth noting that at the beginning of December 2025, Bitcoin miners were already facing record financial losses.