Bitcoin mining difficulty jumped about 15% to 144.4 trillion on Feb. 20, reversing an 11% drop earlier this month.
The earlier decline was the sharpest since China’s 2021 mining ban and followed a storm-driven hit to US mining operations.
Hash rate rebound drives adjustment
In late January, Foundry USA, the largest mining pool by hash rate, briefly saw its computing power fall to about 198 exahashes per second from nearly 400 EH/s before recovering.
Hash rate measures the total computing power securing the network, while mining difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks, roughly every two weeks, to keep block production near its 10-minute target.
As US miners restored operations after the storm, hash rate rebounded, prompting the latest upward difficulty adjustment.
The move increases the computational effort required to earn block rewards, tightening margins for miners already facing cost pressure.
Miners sell power back to the grid
Some miners said outages did not necessarily erase revenue because demand response programs and flexible power contracts allow them to pause mining and sell electricity back to the grid when prices spike.
Bruce Rodgers, chairman and CEO of Bitcoin miner LM Funding America, said:
“In January, our power infrastructure highlighted the flexibility of our operating model.”
A February company report said LM Funding curtailed operations during Winter Storm Fern and redirected contracted power to the grid, generating more than a quarter of its typical quarterly energy and curtailment revenue over a single weekend.
US remains top mining hub
Canaan, a Singapore-based mining hardware manufacturer with US operations, said its US mining activities participated in power curtailments in storm-affected regions through coordination with site partners.
Since China’s 2021 crackdown, the US has become the world’s largest bitcoin-mining hub.
Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance data shows the US accounts for over one-third of global hash rate.
