Bitcoin hash rate has experienced a massive decline to close to 38% as miners prepare for a drastic change in weather in the US. As part of preparations, miners have begun to shut down their mining rigs while maintaining extreme carefulness. In a report published by an electricity tracking website, areas close to Maine and New York have been without electricity for a while now. The report states that something said to be a bomb cyclone hit, causing severe weather conditions.
Mining companies shut down operations
The latest report from the tracking website showed that more than a million houses and businesses lost power for a long time on December 23. This outage has also affected Bitcoin miners who have moved to turn off their rigs and shut down operations. In an analysis presented by Glassnode, the recent drop is the biggest that the network has experienced since the last one that happened in June. Hash rate is a phenomenon that describes the total number of power that goes into the processing and production of Bitcoin. This means that the network is very secure if the hash rate is high.
The weather condition does not affect the Bitcoin price
The extreme weather conditions have spread wide, affecting areas close to places that share borders with Mexico. One of the most popular mining centers around that area, Riot Blockchain, recently announced that they were shutting down operations for the main time. The company cited the conditions and stated that it wants to keep its team members safe from the weather scare. Core Scientific is also one in a list of others that have packed up their equipment, citing similar conditions.
The company mentioned that it wants to help the area curtail the massive cold weather, thereby shutting its operations to help the grid in the area serve people better. The firm expects that the production of Bitcoin will drop around this period and will likely pick up pace after the weather subsides. IntoTheBlock analysis showed that the hash rate briefly picked up the pace on Sunday before experiencing this latest plunge. However, the moves have not had any major impact on the price of the leading digital asset. Bitcoin has been trading better with the asset in the green over the last few days.
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/bitcoin-hash-rate-plummets-weather-worsens/