Texas bitcoin miners are being forced to cease operations as a result of the escalating global energy crisis and the continuous collapse of the cryptocurrency market. Texas miners have been forced to suspend operations as a result of an impending heat wave that is expected to strain the state’s power grid after the state experienced the effects of early crypto winter.
Bloomberg reports that as Texas’ energy problem worsens, the majority of bitcoin mining farms have stopped operations. According to Lee Bratcher, the president of the Texas Blockchain Association,
“There are over 1,000 megawatts worth of Bitcoin mining load that responded to ERCOTs conservation request by turning off their machines to conserve energy for the grid. This represents nearly all industrial scale Bitcoin mining load in Texas and allows for over 1% of total grid capacity to be pushed back onto the grid for retail and commercial use”.
Texas bitcoin miners have already given up their work to provide for the availability of surplus power reserves. Texas cryptocurrency miners announced in February of this year that they would significantly reduce their energy use in an effort to stabilize the grid during Winter Storm Landon.
Even Riot Blockchain, the biggest Bitcoin miner in the state, participated in the act by halting mining. Trystine Payfer, the head of communications for Riot, confirmed that the change was voluntary, noting,
“Whinstone began taking proactive measures to prepare for shutting down its mining operations in response to any demand surges in ERCOT [grid operator — Electric Reliability Council of Texas]”.
Bitcoin mining no longer seems to bring in profits
However, the continued downturn has prompted the involuntary shutdown of cryptocurrency mining rigs, whereas in Texas miners made the conscious decision to suspend operations because of the energy issue. An organization that offers computer power-sharing services, Bitdeer, recently published a report in which it noted that the values of old bitcoin mining equipment have dipped following the shutdown due to a lack of profitability.
Additionally, the chart had started to indicate an inversion, according to data from BTC hash ribbons provided by Glassnode Studio. The Hash Ribbon basically functions as a market indicator, presuming that the world’s largest cryptocurrency often reaches a bottom when miners give up or when mining BTC becomes prohibitively expensive. Because of this, the hash rate for mining bitcoins has also stopped, proving that the miners’ revenues are straining the network.