Texas a Bitcoin ‘hot spot’ even as heat waves affect crypto miners

Record-breaking heat waves are being documented across the world as extreme weather is worsening due to climate change. States throughout America are continuing to see temperatures rise above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), while the United Kingdom recently saw temperatures reach 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).

While hot climates may be unusual for many of these regions, Texas — a state notorious for its boiling summers — is experiencing hotter-than-usual temperatures. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) recently stated that Texas’ power load demand has been breaking records consistently this month.

Unsurprisingly, Texas’ continuous heat wave is having a major impact on crypto miners located throughout the Lone Star State. As Cointelegraph recently reported, a number of miners in Texas had to cease operations entirely earlier this month in order to accommodate Texas’ energy grid load.

Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, told Cointelegraph that there are about 10 industrial-scale crypto miners and 20 smaller-scale miners currently located in the region. 

Earlier this month, ERCOT asked businesses and residents to voluntarily conserve electricity during the Texas heat wave. A Riot Blockchain spokesperson told Cointelegraph that its Whinstone facility in Rockdale is now participating in ERCOT’s Four Coincident Peak program, noting that the facility will curtail all power to help stabilize the grid during peak hours of demand. “As part of Riot’s participation in the program, in June the company curtailed energy consumption for a total of 8,648 megawatt hours,” the spokesperson said.

Peter Wall, CEO of Argo Blockchain — a crypto mining company that recently opened a data center in West Texas — also told Cointelegraph that the company curtails mining operations when ERCOT sends out a conservation alert. On July 19, 2022, he said that Agro had to undergo this, along with many other mining operators in the area.

As a result, Bitcoin (BTC) miners saw the biggest drop in computing power on July 21, 2022 since China banned crypto mining in May 2021. This came as a surprise to industry experts who would have expected the Bitcoin hash rate difficulty to increase based on current trends. Frank Holmes, CEO of Hive Blockchain Technology — a publicly traded crypto mining company with operations in Canada and Europe — told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin’s hash rate difficulty was supposed…