The American mining giant Foundry USA has abruptly shut down about 60% of its Bitcoin mining machines. Foundry USA’s Bitcoin hash rate has dropped by nearly 200 EH/s, plunging from around 328 EH/s to 198 EH/s.
This wasn’t caused by a cyberattack or technical malfunction, but rather by a deadly winter storm named "Fern" that swept across large parts of the United States. The storm left over 1 million residents without power and forced major Bitcoin mining farms—heavily reliant on the electric grid—to rapidly scale back operations.
Storm Impact
The US crypto mining landscape is undergoing dramatic upheaval triggered by extreme weather. A powerful winter storm, "Fern," is sweeping across the country, stretching from the Southeast to the Northeast and into the Midwest, bringing a mix of heavy snow, hail, and freezing rain. The affected area spans roughly 1,800 miles—a massive scale.
The immediate result has been widespread infrastructure paralysis, with over a million residents nationwide losing electricity. Faced with such extensive power shortages and grid stress, major electricity consumers have had to make adjustments.
Mining Load Reduction
Foundry USA, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, proactively scaled back its operations in response to the storm. Since last Friday, the pool’s hash rate has dropped by about 60%. In practical terms, this means its hash rate has fallen by nearly 200 EH/s, now maintaining only about 198 EH/s.
Even so, Foundry USA still accounts for a significant 23% of the global mining pool hash rate. This underscores its critical role in the Bitcoin network and explains why such a sharp drop could trigger ripple effects across the ecosystem.
To visualize the impact of this hash rate shift, here’s a comparison of Foundry USA’s key operational data before and after the storm:
| Metric | Pre-Storm | Current | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hash Rate | ~328 EH/s | ~198 EH/s | Down ~60% |
| Global Pool Share | ~29% | ~23% | Down ~6 percentage points |
| Block Time | ~10 minutes | ~12 minutes | Increased ~20% |
Grid Balancing
Interestingly, this crisis has highlighted the potential value of Bitcoin miners as "flexible grid balancers." Bitcoin mining facilities are highly controllable loads that can quickly adjust their power consumption in response to grid demand.
During the emergency caused by the storm’s spike in grid stress, miners voluntarily shut down their machines, effectively reducing grid load and helping ensure power for residential and critical infrastructure. When electricity supply exceeds demand, mining farms can ramp up operations to absorb surplus energy that might otherwise go to waste. Conversely, when supply is tight, they can rapidly scale back or halt consumption.
Industry Impact
Foundry USA isn’t the only mining operator affected. Other pools serving US users, such as Luxor, have also reduced their hash rates. This large-scale, proactive shutdown exposes a key vulnerability in US Bitcoin mining: heavy reliance on the traditional electric grid. With over 37% of global Bitcoin hash rate based in the US, extreme weather events clearly have a significant impact on this portion of the network.
It’s worth noting that while Foundry USA’s hash rate plummeted, the overall resilience of the Bitcoin network has been proven. The pool’s average block production time only slowed from the usual 10 minutes to about 12 minutes. This demonstrates that the Bitcoin network’s decentralization provides enough robustness that even a major pool outage doesn’t cause catastrophic effects.
Price and Market Correlation
Major shifts in industry fundamentals often show up quickly in market prices. According to Gate’s market data, as of January 26, 2026, the Bitcoin price stood at $87,618, down 1.73% over the past 24 hours. The Ethereum price was $2,864.76, down 3.04% in the same period. While both leading cryptocurrencies declined, attributing this solely to changes in hash rate would be an oversimplification.
The crypto market is influenced by a range of factors, including macroeconomic conditions, regulatory developments, and broader market sentiment. Short-term price swings are often driven by complex market psychology and liquidity shifts. Notably, a sharp drop in Bitcoin’s hash rate could theoretically reduce network security in the short term, but this effect is usually temporary, and the market tends to quickly absorb the news once miners resume operations.
Outlook and Takeaways
With climate change intensifying, extreme weather events like this may become more frequent, posing long-term challenges for mining regions with high concentration. This trend could drive Bitcoin mining toward more diversified energy sources and a more geographically distributed footprint.
Miners may seek closer integration with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, or spread operations across different climate zones to reduce the risk of widespread outages. On the positive side, this event highlights one of Bitcoin’s core strengths—decentralization and antifragility. Even with a 60% drop in hash rate from the world’s largest pool, the Bitcoin network continued to function, experiencing only a minor delay in block production.
Twenty-four hours after the hash rate plunge, Bitcoin’s price showed only minor fluctuations from $87,618. On the global hash rate distribution chart, Foundry USA’s once-dominant share noticeably shrank. Yet on the very same day, several mid-sized mining pools in Kazakhstan and Canada quietly increased their hash rates. In Norway, a small hydro-powered mining farm boosted its hash rate by 15%, packaging three Bitcoin blocks at slightly above-average prices. Foundry USA’s operations team is closely monitoring the weather, with dormant mining rigs ready to restart and rejoin the global Bitcoin network’s hash rate surge at any moment.
