Storm Impact: Hashrate Sheds 248 EH/s in Six Days
A brutal Arctic storm front swept through the southern United States and lower Ohio Valley in late January 2026, with the hardest-hit states including Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia. These regions host significant Bitcoin mining operations, most notably Texas. To relieve strain on power grids, American-based miners drastically scaled back operations, triggering a sharp drop in network hashrate. Data shows the total hashrate over the past 24 hours ranges between 800 and 875 exahash per second (EH/s).
Three days ago, the world's largest mining pool, Foundry USA, preemptively curtailed a substantial portion of its hashrate in preparation for the storm. Since then, the downward trend persisted. While Bitcoin has lost 385 EH/s from its all-time high of 1,190 EH/s on October 15, 2025, the most dramatic decline unfolded after January 22, 2026. According to hashrateindex.com, the three-day simple moving average (SMA) stood at 1,053 EH/s on that date, dropping to 805 EH/s on January 28. This means approximately 248 EH/s vanished between January 22 and 28, accounting for 64% of the total decline from the peak.
Block Times Lengthen, Difficulty Adjustment Looms
The hashrate slowdown pushed block intervals well beyond the standard 10-minute target. Average block times exceeded 12 minutes at the time of earlier reports and continue hovering at 12 minutes and 12 seconds. If this pace holds, the upcoming difficulty epoch—scheduled around February 8, 2026—would rank among the largest adjustments seen in years. Tracking platforms like hashrateindex.com project a difficulty reduction of more than 18%. The Arctic storm front is expected to persist into early next week, uncomfortably close to the adjustment window, making this projection highly plausible. Should hashrate recover and block times normalize before the adjustment, the predicted drop would shrink, but for now, the data points to a record-setting difficulty reduction.
A Lifeline for Struggling Miners
For Bitcoin miners grappling with weaker BTC exchange rates and thin hashprice-based revenue, the timing could hardly be better. A sizable difficulty adjustment would immediately relieve competitive pressure, improving the odds of earning block rewards with the same infrastructure. In an environment where margins have been tight, even a temporary improvement in network conditions could translate into a meaningful boost to operating efficiency and near-term profitability.