On December 25th, the total hashrate of bitcoin dropped as low as 170 exahash per second (EH/s), as reports indicated that during a huge winter freeze, Texas bitcoin miners had decided to reduce their hashpower.
According to statistics, there was also a drop of 100 exahash from the network, but it had made a rebound to 240 EH/s from 170 EH/s by 12:00 p.m.
| Name | Price | 24H (%) |
|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin(BTC) | $107,657.00 | 4.37% |
 Ethereum(ETH) | $4,048.24 | 3.85% |
 Dogecoin(DOGE) | $0.409949 | 1.80% |
 Cardano(ADA) | $1.10 | 1.62% |
 Polygon(MATIC) | $0.61 | -0.21% |
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Computational power drops
On December 24th, 2022, the bitcoin hashrate had reached 272 EH/s, but the early hours of the next day saw it plunge to as low as 170 EH/s.
A number of reports indicated that bitcoin miners in the area of Texas had decided to shut down their operations temporarily because of the cold weather.
Lancium, a bitcoin mining operation, had also closed its facility in Ft. Stockton voluntarily in order to ensure that the grid had more power.
A bitcoin supporter tweeted that miners had taken the extreme weather in Texas into account and decided to shut down their operations to benefit the grid.
Core Scientific, another bitcoin mining firm, also said that they had curtailed operations as well. The mining operation said that they would participate in several power curtailments because of the extreme cold weather seen in the southern and eastern parts of the US, as that would stabilize the electrical grid.
Hashrate
According to statistics, almost 100 exahash had gone offline, but most of it had returned around noon and it was once more back to 240 EH/s.
As a matter of fact, the numbers showed that Antpool had managed to surpass the hashrate of Foundry USA for the first time in a long period of time.
At the time of writing, 29.92% of the hashrate globally was contributed by Antpool, as its computational power stands at around 69 EH/s.
As far as Foundry USA is concerned, its share of the global hashrate stood at 19.68% with the computational power of 45.51 EH/s.
Two days earlier, Foundry USA had commanded 31% of the global network’s hashrate at 70 EH/s.
The weather
Reports have indicated that there is a major cold freeze in Texas and people do not want to deal with the blackouts they faced last year.
The holiday weekend was expected to have a subzero real feel in the state and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) had more tests to deal with.
Neil Galloway, the director of mining operations at Compass Mining, said that miners needed to be prepared for ups and downs because of the winter storm.
He added that the conditions were rough for their technicians and hosting partners, which could slow down progress, but they were going to keep an eye on things because it is what bitcoin mining is about.
He stated that with mining operations shut down, people would be able to cook at home and keep the heat on. Hospitals would also be able to treat their patients and military bases would be able to monitor the borders.
Galloway said that bitcoin miners could play an integral role in balancing the grid.
