Sichuan rainstorm forced miners to stop operations, and BTC network computing power has begun to decline

This article is from Coindesk, original author: Wolfie Zhao

Odaily Planet Daily Translator | Moni

Long-term heavy rains in Sichuan Province have caused serious land mudslides, forcing some local hydropower stations and Bitcoin miners to stop operations. According to social media reports from the local government, heavy rains have hit Aba Prefecture in Sichuan since Monday, and landslides have affected 17 counties in the region, with Wenchuan County being the worst hit.

According to China Daily, the mudslides have destroyed local power supply and communication infrastructure and killed at least seven people.

According to a video clip posted by an unnamed cryptocurrency mining farm operator, his mining facility in Wenchuan was damaged and some Bitcoin mining machines were covered in mud.

It is worth mentioning that Biyin also released a similar video on Twitter. In addition, the mining operator added that heavy rains caused excessive water in the reservoir used by local hydropower stations, forcing many power stations in Aba Prefecture to stop generating electricity, which may cause power shortages in mining farms in the short term.

Sichuan Minjiang Hydropower Co., Ltd., a Shanghai-listed hydropower energy company, released a statement on Wednesday (August 21) revealing that it has shut down three power plants in the rainy area, and another power plant was affected by flooding. It is not clear how many bitcoin miners will be affected because they are scattered in the area, and Wenchuan, which covers an area of ​​about 2,000 square miles, is only a small county in the entire Aba Prefecture.

According to BTC.com mining pool data, Bitcoin's 24-hour average computing power has dropped from 78EH/s on Monday (August 19) to around 73EH/s on Wednesday, but the average computing power in the past three and seven days has remained at around 74EH/s.

The cheap hydropower brought by Sichuan's summer flood season has attracted a large number of Bitcoin miners, which has recently pushed Bitcoin's computing power to a new high. However, what miners may not have expected is that excessive rainfall now seems to have become another operational risk. At present, most local mining farms are distributed in a large area consisting of Aba Prefecture (32,000 square miles), Ganzi (57,000 square miles) and Liangshan (23,000 square miles).

According to local weather forecasts, rainfall is likely to continue in Wenchuan in the coming days, and it is unclear whether the current situation and power supply will return to normal levels.

Bitcoin mining difficulty — a measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards — is now around 10 trillion, and the rate of increase in difficulty has been trending downwards, from about 3% on Tuesday to about 1.5% now. Bitcoin's mining difficulty is adjusted every 2,016 blocks, or about every two weeks, to ensure that the rate of creating new blocks remains around 10 minutes per block.