Foundry USA Bitcoin hashrate slumps 60% from Friday as winter storm Fern batters United States

Foundry USA, operator of the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool, has reduced its hashrate by about 60% since Friday in response to winter storm Fern sweeping across the United States. The pool's computing power reportedly dropped by nearly 200 EH/s, slowing temporary block production to around 12 minutes while it still maintains about 23% of global Bitcoin mining pool hashrate. The storm has caused widespread power outages for over 1 million residents and prompted other US-based mining pools to curb energy use to ease pressure on the grid.