US Winter Storm Freezes Bitcoin Mining: Foundry Hashrate Tanks 60%, Revenue Hits Yearly Low
Winter Storm Fern forced a 60% drop in Foundry USA’s hashrate as miner revenue collapsed to $28 million, signaling extreme capitulation risks.
The Deep Freeze
US Bitcoin miners unplugged en masse this week as Winter Storm Fern hammered the North American grid, forcing the network’s hashrate to its lowest level since September 2025. The disruption was immediate and severe. Data from TheMinerMag confirms Foundry USA, the world’s largest mining pool, shed nearly 200 exahashes per second (EH/s) of computing power, a staggering 60% collapse in its output between January 23 and 25.
Block production slowed to 12 minutes as the network struggled to process the sudden loss of hashpower. While the storm provided the catalyst, the economics of curtailment drove the decision. With spot prices hovering near $77,000, down 39% from the October high of $126,000, miners in Texas and the Midwest found it more profitable to sell power back to the strained grid than to mine marginally profitable blocks.
Financial Stress Indicators Flash Red
The operational freeze has decimated revenue. Daily mining income across the network slid from $45 million on January 22 to a yearly low of $28 million. The revenue squeeze is compounding an already brutal month for operators.
CryptoQuant’s Miner Profit/Loss Sustainability Index plunged to 21, a level not seen since November 2024. This metric signals that miners are effectively paying to keep machines running.
“Miners are extremely underpaid,” CryptoQuant analysts noted. “The strain persists even after multiple downward difficulty adjustments.”
The Grid Hedge
For publicly traded giants like MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms, the storm offered a perverse lifeline. While their hash production fell, their ability to act as “flexible load” allowed them to arbitrage energy prices, selling contracted power at premium crisis rates. However, this financial hedge does little to protect smaller operators without power purchase agreements (PPAs), who simply faced downtime without compensation.
The network difficulty is expected to drop ~5% at the next adjustment on February 8, providing slight relief to surviving machines. Until then, the sector remains in a precarious hold, dependent on either a thaw in temperatures or a rebound in spot prices.
