- Fourteen days ago, the average Bitcoin hashrate was about 237 EH/s.
- As of December 24, the hashrate fell to 156 EH/s according to BTC.com.
A harsh winter storm in the United States has had a dramatic impact on the Bitcoin hashrate which fell by 35 percent in 24 hours. CNN reported that the storm has killed at least 22 people and tore down power lines, causing about 315,000 homes and businesses without power on Christmas eve. A website tracking utility report PowerOutage, also estimates that 1.4 million homes and businesses are in the dark. In addition, thousands of flights have been canceled to this effect.
Fourteen days ago, the average Bitcoin hashrate was about 237 EH/s. As of December 24, the hashrate fell to 156 EH/s according to BTC.com. This means that Bitcoin miners were left with no option but to shut down. Currently, things are picking up with the hashrate sitting at 229.83 EH/s as of press time. The significant fall of the hashrate raised several questions concerning the centralized nature of Bitcoin mining.
Dennis Porter compared the Bitcoin network to Amazon and Google
Dennis Porter, CEO of Satoshi Act Fund lauded how the global Bitcoin network worked perfectly fine despite the shutdown of miners and compared this with tech giants such as Amazon and Google.
Over 30% of the #Bitcoin hashrate has gone offline due to extreme weather in Texas and yet the global #Bitcoin network continues to work perfectly. Now imagine if Amazon or Google tried turning off 1/3rd of their data centers.
Dennis Porter also referred to data center operator lancium’s decision to shut down its operation.
Bitcoin miners have once again voluntarily shut off power during an extreme weather event in Texas.Bitcoin miners are good for the grid.
FutureBit founder John Stefanopoulos has also observed that highly centralized miners contributed to the hash rate going offline. According to him, weather and geological disruptions alone slowing down transactions by 30 percent on the Bitcoin network is enough to conclude that the network is too dependent on such events.
The US has played a very important role in Bitcoin mining since China started cracking down on mining infrastructures in 2021. Texas has several of these miners due to its favorable regulations and cheap power. However, they tend to shut down when there is a significant increase in grid demand. This poses a serious threat to the Bitcoin network which is supposed to be independent of such external circumstances.
Stefanopoulos stated:
If hashrate was distributed evenly around the world by 10’s of millions of small miners instead of a few dozen massive mines, this event would not have even registered on the network.
The storm is said to be hitting the Upper Midwest and interior Northeast with serious snow and blizzard conditions.
