Good point DeathAndTaxes.
Just like mining real gold we have come far since the sieve and we're now using deep mining rigs costing millions.
More expensive mining rigs will bring the price of a bitcoin to new heights just like gold.
If a bar of 12,5 kg gold can be around €400000,- why can't 12,5 Bitcoin be that
The bitcoin will hopefully reflect the price of mining hardware and effort needed to mine deeper.
I can understand the plateau because the amount of miners will decline and mining companies will come into existence to find bitcoins.
This will probably make the trend more based on the technology and less volatile between technology shifts. Mining will slow down considerably.
Dedicated mining companies / mining clouds are popping up so we are at the beginning of the "third phase" in my view on bitcoin mining.
We still have a few years of ASIC development ahead so the price will probably keep increasing for now.
My view on phases:
First is solo miners - no adoption by anybody, no real value
Second is mining pools - adoption limited to a few companies, exchanges pop up for trading, value picking up rapidly
Third is mining corporations / mining clouds - adoption starting to pick up by quite a few companies, value picking up even more
But then???
Forth could be
- the death of bitcoin by quantum computers
- worldwide adoption
- replacement of bitcoin by bitcoin_v2 to solve some oncomming problems.
That said... If I can still get 10x to 100x my money it will be a good profit