Extreme winter conditions have triggered a record 6.8 GW of Bitcoin mining load to switch off, driving one of the largest hashrate drawdowns in history. The decline that began in October is driving difficulty lower, yet weak BTC price action continues to keep hashprice under pressure. While much of the network is retrenching, the NIP Group is approaching 10 EH/s, and Bitdeer has now become the largest public miner by hashrate.
Bitcoin Collides with Global Macro Forces
When Extreme Cold Meets Flexible Hashrate
Network Hashrate Faces a Winter Pullback
Difficulty Comes Back to Earths
Hashprice Refuses to Recover
Bitdeer Surpasses MARA as the Largest Public Miner by Hashrate – Premium Insight
Ninjas in Pyjamas Joining Select Few – Premium Insight
Professional Hashrate Buyers Use NiceHash Business Orders – Premium Insight
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Bitcoin Collides with Global Macro Forces
Since the start of the year, Bitcoin staged a strong rally, pushing toward $98,000. However, since January 15th price saw a sharp move lower, pulling BTC back as low as $86,000. Currently it is ranging just above that level.
At the moment, Bitcoin remains highly sensitive to global macro volatility and geopolitical risk. First President Trump threatened newly imposed tariffs on eight European countries following their opposition to U.S. control of Greenland. Later Trump imposed 100% tariffs on Canadian imports, citing concerns over Canada’s alleged involvement in a trade agreement with China. At the same time, a historic shift in Japanese debt markets has emerged as a key driver of broader global volatility.
From a technical perspective, Bitcoin is now trading well below its 200-day moving average (red line), which sits around $105,000. This level has historically acted as a critical bull- and bear-market pivot. Until BTC can reclaim this zone, upside momentum remains structurally constrained.
Strategy Crosses 700,000 BTC Line
Strategy acquired 22,305 BTC for approximately $2.13 billion between January 12 and January 19, 2026, pushing its Bitcoin treasury above the 700,000 BTC milestone. As Bitcoin continued to decline, Michael Saylor added another 2,932 BTC for roughly $264.1 million, at an average price of $90,061 per bitcoin.
As of January 25, 2026, Strategy holds 712,647 BTC, acquired for a total of approximately $54.19 billion, at an average cost of $76,037 per bitcoin. This makes Strategy the second-largest holder of Bitcoin, behind only BlackRock, which holds more than 779,000 BTC through its IBIT ETF.
This continued accumulation reinforces Strategy’s position as the most aggressive corporate Bitcoin allocator in the market, using equity capital to systematically convert shareholder value into long-term BTC exposure.
When Extreme Cold Meets Flexible Hashrate
A severe winter storm is sweeping across the Southeast U.S., stretching from Texas to Georgia and pushing much of the region into sustained sub-freezing temperatures, snow, and ice. What makes this event different is not just the intensity, but the duration: four or more days of continuous cold, creating compounding stress across power systems that are not designed for prolonged winter extremes.
This has already triggered conservation alerts from grid operators as heating demand surges. For Bitcoin miners, that combination of cold weather and grid stress produces both operational pressure and strategic opportunity. Extreme temperatures raise energy costs and infrastructure risk, while power prices spike precisely when demand response programs become most valuable.
In Texas, the situation highlights how much the grid has changed since the winter storm in 2021, which directly and indirectly caused 246 deaths. ERCOT reports that the system remains stable, supported by a large increase in flexible, large-load capacity added over the past three years, much of it from Bitcoin miners and data centers. Unlike traditional industrial loads, Bitcoin mining is fully interruptible and programmable. Miners absorb surplus power when it is cheap and abundant, and they power down when the grid is under stress. Events like this are demonstrating why mining has become a critical stabilizing layer in modern energy systems.
Network Hashrate Faces a Winter Pullback
On Sunday the 25th, network hashrate dropped from 1,160 EH/s to 706 EH/s, a decline of 454 EH/s. That is equivalent to nearly 2 million Antminer S21 Pro units, or roughly 6.8 GW of load, being powered down in a matter of hours.
The more reliable 7-day moving average is also trending lower, falling below 1 Zetahash for the first time since crossing that milestone in mid-September 2025. The 7-DMA is now at 969 EH/s, 159 EH/s (14.1%) below its all-time high of 1,128 EH/s set on October 21.
For context, the largest hashrate drawdown until this moment occurred during the curtailments of summer 2025, when the 7-DMA fell by 148 EH/s, or 15.6%. While the current pullback is smaller, it underscores again how tightly integrated Bitcoin mining has become with grid-level demand response.
Difficulty Comes Back to Earth
Since network hashrate peaked in October, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has been moving lower in lockstep. The final weeks of 2025 closed with three consecutive downward adjustments, interrupted only by a marginal +0.04% uptick on December 25. That trend has continued into 2026. The network has already seen two more difficulty reductions, at –1.2% and –3.28%, reflecting the ongoing hashrate pullback.
As a result, difficulty now sits at 141.67 trillion, down from its all-time high of 155.97 trillion, a decline of 9.2%. In practical terms, the network is becoming easier to mine, increasing the share of block rewards captured by operators who remain online through the current hashrate contraction.
Hashprice Refuses to Recover
Despite last week’s drop in mining difficulty, hashprice remains below the $40/PH/day level, primarily due to continued weakness in Bitcoin’s price. With the exception of just five brief days, hashprice has stayed below this threshold since mid-November, signalling that miner margins have been structurally compressed for over two months.
This matters because difficulty relief alone is not enough to improve profitability if BTC price remains under pressure. As long as price fails to recover, even efficient operators will struggle to generate meaningful cash flow, accelerating balance-sheet stress for highly levered miners and reinforcing a shakeout of less efficient hashrate.
The following insights are available exclusively to premium readers.
Bitdeer Surpasses MARA as the Largest Public Miner by Hashrate
Ninjas in Pyjamas Joining Select Few
Professional Hashrate Buyers Use NiceHash Business Orders
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