BTC mining farms in the US state of Texas went offline due to a blizzard that damaged the region’s power grid. Some farms sell electricity back to the grid at a premium.
According to Ethan Vera, co-founder of the American cryptocurrency mining company Luxor Tech, most Texas mining farms have ceased operations due to power outages. As a result of the failure, the hash rate of the Luxor mining pool decreased by 40%.
Most of the pool hashrate comes from US mining farms, Vera said. While it’s unclear what exact percentage of Bitcoin’s global hashrate comes from facilities in Texas, the state is home to some of the largest companies in the industry. This is due to the low electricity rates in Texas.
The largest cryptocurrency mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain completed the construction of a large 50 MW mining center in the Texas city of Rockdale in October 2019. BTC mining-focused startup Layer1 launched the first mining farm in Texas last February.
Some mining farms are taking advantage of this situation by selling unused electricity to local residents. CEO of the mining company MiningStore from Texas John Paul Baric noted:
“Some miners have been able to get huge profits from selling their unused energy back to the network.”
The state’s power grid suffered last weekend as wind turbines froze and natural gas for power plants became scarce, according to the director of the Texas Electricity Reliability Board Dan Woodfin.
According to the Austin American Statesman, by Sunday, all power producers in Texas, including nuclear and coal plants, as well as heat generators, had stopped supplying electricity to the grid due to a blizzard. Farms in Kentucky were also hit by snowstorms.
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