The Bitcoin network has demonstrated significant resilience, with its total hashrate surging more than 20% over a two-week period in February 2026. This recovery comes after a slump caused by a combination of severe winter storms in the United States and intensified regulatory crackdowns in countries like China and Russia, which forced many miners offline.
The rebound is notable as it defies concurrent price pressure, with Bitcoin's price having plummeted to a low of $60,000 during what was described as the worst market rout in almost four years. Despite lower profitability, miners are returning. Leo Wang, a vice president at miner manufacturer Canaan, noted, "Bitcoin mining is a uniquely flexible load... the network remains very strong from a hashrate and security standpoint."
Analysts attribute the rapid recovery primarily to North American miners plugging back in after winter storms disrupted power grids. During the outages, some miners sold surplus energy back to stressed grids, earning more than they would have from mining. However, regulatory pressures continue, with Russia's Ministry of Justice proposing strict penalties for power theft by miners.
The network's self-correcting difficulty adjustment mechanism is now in focus. Following an 11.4% downward adjustment on February 7 due to the decreased hashrate, the next adjustment around February 20 is anticipated to be a significant increase. "We may see the next difficulty adjustment to be up notably again," said Wolfie Zhao, head of research at TheMinerMag.
This cycle highlights the economic pressures on miners operating on thin margins, with many pivoting to more profitable AI and high-performance computing services. The event ultimately serves as a stress test, strengthening the network by promoting operational efficiency and geographic diversification among mining operations.
