The United States Bitcoin mining industry, which accounts for a significant portion of the global hash rate, faced severe operational disruption during recent major winter storms, most notably Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022. Production data confirms that the scale of power curtailment enacted by mining farms was massive, effectively serving as a major shock absorber for strained regional power grids.
During periods of extreme cold, high residential heating demand pushes local grids, particularly Texas’s ERCOT system, toward capacity limits. To prevent catastrophic blackouts, grid operators request or mandate industrial users to drastically reduce consumption. Bitcoin mining facilities, many of which operate on interruptible power agreements designed for flexibility, responded instantly.
Analysis of the total measured Bitcoin network hash rate serves as the primary data point revealing the impact. During the peak intensity of the storm, the global network hash rate typically observed a quantifiable drop, often peaking around 30% to 40% in short bursts. As the vast majority of this sudden volatility originated from North American pools, analysts attribute this decline directly to the swift and coordinated shutdown of gigawatts of mining equipment across states like Texas, North Dakota, and Kentucky.
Major public miners detailed in regulatory filings that they had powered down facilities accounting for hundreds of megawatts of load. While this temporary loss of mining revenue was significant, the financial impact was often mitigated by payments received from power purchase agreements for curtailment, which effectively pays miners to stay offline during high-demand events. The sharp drop in hash rate underscores the highly elastic nature of US mining capacity and confirms that extreme climatic events pose a measurable, ongoing risk to network production stability.
Source: Bitcoin miner production data reveals scale of US winter storm disruption
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