According to BTC.com, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty went down by 3.59% in Asia early Tuesday, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Some United States-based Bitcoin mining organizations and miners shut down due to heavy winter storms during the holiday season. The cash shortage issue continued as an outcome of low Bitcoin prices and high energy consumption costs.
Currently, difficulty reading is at 34.09 trillion at 770,112 block height on January 3rd. Data shows that the Bitcoin mining difficulty reading was 40% higher than last year’s reading on January 8, when the difficulty reading was 24.37 trillion.
Blizzards in America affect Bitcoin mining
Amid crypto winter, America has now begun experiencing the winter season, an unusually harsh one. The United States and Canada are experiencing Arctic Storms. As per weather reports, temperature is around -50°F (-45°C) in the western U.S. state of Montana while the western state of New York is covered with 43 inches of snowfall.
As an outcome of this harsh winter conditions in various parts of North America, Bitcoin mining organizations and individual miners have shut down. Data from BTC.com shows that between December 21 to 24, the Bitcoin mining hashrate dropped from 251.39 exahash per second to 156.46 exahash per second.
According to Mining Pool Stats, Foundry Digital LLC, a leading Bitcoin mining pool in the world, lost more than half of its hashrate on December 23, which seems to be the biggest loss for any major pool. As per local media reports, some of the biggest miners have decreased their mining operations, including Riot Blockchain (RIOT) and Core Scientific (CORZ).
In his LinkedIn post, Lee Bratcher, Founder and President of the industry group Texas Blockchain Council, stated a week ago, “The Bitcoin miners curtailed their power consumption between 5pm on Thursday and Friday morning at 5 am. This morning around 6 am when the grid needed the power the most, 99% of industrial scale bitcoin mining load was off! “
Dennis Porter, CEO and co-founder of Satoshi Action Fund, tweeted on December 24, “Bitcoin miners have once again voluntarily shut off power during an extreme weather event in Texas.”
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/01/03/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-fells-3-6-in-latest-adjustment/