Reducing electricity supplied to Bitcoin mining machines does not always produce an immediate reduction in energy use, according to an analysis published by CryptoSlate. The issue involves controllers that respond to mining shares, the work units submitted by machines to a pool. When power is cut or reduced, the equipment may continue hashing during a limited operating window, even though it produces few or no accepted shares. In that situation, miners can keep consuming electricity without generating work that the pool recognizes. The finding highlights how the design and timing of a mining controller can affect the efficiency of power-management measures. Rather than treating a power reduction as an instant stop, operators may need to account for the period in which partially powered machines continue operating without accepted output.
