Ice storm forced Texas miners to stop mining cryptocurrency
Because of the bad weather more than 250 thousand consumers were left without electricity, which caused the rise in electricity prices and forced the companies mining the cryptocurrency to stop mining and send the power to the local power grid
An ice storm in Texas caused power outages and forced miners to suspend cryptocurrency mining, Bloomberg reported. The extreme weather also caused damage to some of their equipment.
The emergency caused electricity prices to rise, forcing some mining companies to shut down their devices.
Since Monday, the outages have lasted about six hours a day, Kang Zhao, director of marketing at mining company JDK Capital, told the publication. The loss of processing power is about 25 percent per day, he said. He noted, however, that the short-term effect of reduced capacity does not affect the long-term prospects of the company, which has a 20-MW mining site near Dallas.
In addition to the surge in power costs caused by the storm, some miners experienced damage to their equipment. This affected those whose devices were located in mobile containers not designed to withstand winter storms.
From January 30 to 31 the hash rate dropped 16.7%: from 269 UH/s to this year's lowest value of 224 UH/s, according to BTC.com. By February 2, the figure had risen to 267 UH/s.
Last year, abnormal weather phenomena in the U.S. has already twice led to mass shutdowns of miners in Texas. In mid-July, a heat wave that reached 40 degrees Celsius and windless weather deprived the power grid of alternative energy sources, and large mining companies shut down their operations. Bitcoin's hash rate then fell 27% overnight.
In late December, a severe cold snap and snowstorms in the U.S. also caused the shutdown of a large number of mining farms and reduced the processing power of the leading cryptocurrency by 38%. However, according to reporters, some of the largest miners in Texas, including Riot Platforms, made a profit during the weather by selling power back to the grid.
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