Bitcoin miners halt their machines on the request of ERCOT

ERCOT advises power conservation as the heat waves hits Texas.

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council Of Texas) published an official statement asking the citizens of Texas to turn on their thermostats and prohibited them from using major electrical appliances from 2 p.m to 8 p.m on Monday. ERCOT also went on to prohibit the electricity consumption of big technologically advanced companies and asked them to cut on their electric consumption for the week. All these steps by ERCOT were taken to counter the heat waves that’s persistent in the state for the past couple of days.

As ERCOT advised big companies to shut the consumption of electricity, almost all the big institutions that deal in mining bitcoin shut off their machines in the response to the advice and contributed over 1% of total grid capacity.

Texas took such a decision because the power grid of the state is a separate from the rest of the states of U.S. This means if the power supply fails, Texas would not be able to take help from other states. The advantage of having a separate power grid is that, it would not fall under the provision of the federal.

Bitcoin Miners shut amidst staggering heat waves in Texas!

In the event to avoid big calamities, ERCOT went to advise the firms to cut the electricity consumption. Almost all the big institutions dealing in bitcoin mining followed the orders and shut down their industries. All of this was done, to fight against the heat wave which is tipped to push the state’s power grid to the breaking point.

In statistical figures, over 1000 megawatts worth of bitcoin mining load was paused on the advice of ERCOT. Many big institutions such as Riot Blockchain, Argo Blockchain and Core Scientific went on to stop their operations on the request of ERCOT.

Texas, which is the world’s one of the largest crypto mining hubs in the world in terms of computing power, surely had to follow the request of the council to help the state. Even though, it meant that millions of valued bitcoins are still stuck in mining.

The effect of pause in mining on bitcoin.

The current situation for bitcoin is no good. It has already lost around 70% of its value. As, the stoppage of mining in Texas will hit the market, the miners will see a severe drop in the profitability as the heat waves will keep their machines off persistently. The low value of bitcoin also doesn’t help the condition for the miners.