Bitcoin Miners' Computing Power Drops Leave Pools Struggling
Bitcoin mining pools may struggle to adjust difficulty levels when miners' computing power drops sharply, potentially leading to wasted electricity and delayed reward settlements.
The issue arises from how variable difficulty controllers automatically adjust share difficulty assigned by mining pools to each connection, rather than the overall Bitcoin network difficulty. When a miner's computing power suddenly decreases, their existing high difficulty may remain in place, causing them to take longer to find shares that meet the required level.
According to an analysis by Eric Price, miners continue performing hash computations and consuming power, but submit shares approved by the pool only very rarely. This can result in proof of work not accumulating in time for reward settlements.