The winter storm in the United States has increased the load on the power grid, leading to extended BTC block generation times and forcing miners to reduce their mining activities

Extreme weather conditions in the United States have led to a voluntary halt of most Bitcoin mining activities in the country, with the hash rate of the Foundry USA pool dropping by about 60% since last Friday. The total hash rate of major mining pools in the U.S. has decreased by approximately 200 EH/s, resulting in Bitcoin block production times extending to over 12 minutes. The hash rate of Foundry USA has fallen from a recent peak of nearly 328 EH/s to about 139 EH/s.