Bitcoin Hashrate Plunges 30% as Winter Storm ‘Fernan’ Forces Foundry Shutdown
Foundry USA loses 60% of its hashrate as miners curtail power for the grid, but BTC price holds steady at $87k.
Winter Storm Fernan has effectively frozen a massive tranche of the Bitcoin network, forcing North American miners to curtail operations in a bid to stabilize fracturing power grids. The impact was immediate and localized: Foundry USA, the world’s largest mining pool, reported a 60% drop in hashrate, taking roughly 200 exahashes per second (EH/s) offline.
The Numbers: A 200 EH/s Air Gap
The scale of the drop is unprecedented for a weather event. Foundry’s output plummeted from its standard operational baseline, dragging the global network hashrate down by nearly 30% during peak curtailment. Block production briefly slowed, with intervals stretching to an average of 12 minutes, 20% slower than the protocol’s 10-minute target.
This wasn’t a failure; it was a feature. In jurisdictions like Texas, miners utilize demand-response programs, effectively acting as an industrial-scale kill switch for grid operators. When Fernan’s ice storms spiked residential heating demand, miners powered down instantly to free up capacity for the grid.
The sudden hashrate drop pushed Bitcoin block times closer to 12 minutes, briefly slowing network processing.
Market Reaction: Apathetic
Traders ignored the physical infrastructure shock. Bitcoin (BTC) continued to trade in a tight band between $87,700 and $89,000, showing zero correlation with the security budget contraction. The derivatives market barely flinched, reinforcing the institutional view that hashrate volatility is a geographic redundancy issue, not a network security crisis.
While block production lagged, the difficulty adjustment algorithm is set to recalibrate in roughly 900 blocks, neutralizing the slowdown. The event highlights a growing geographic centralization risk. When North America freezes, the Bitcoin network stutters.
