Sad to know it's not just me..seems like all these pools are going down at once. Assuming since nicehash is down people are trying to find new pools.

I'd like to know if it will be back up as well...

I wonder about the future of mining as well and I'll break this into two sections.

Bitcoin: As someone else mentioned there seems like there will be a point where the hardware will physically max out and then what? Will something better come along and mining will become profitable again or will only heavily invested people with money for the high dollar mining hardware be able to mine? I'm assuming the home miner with less than five miners will not be able to mine and be profitable.

Ethereum/alt coins: I'm currently exploring getting into mining and thought hard of going this route instead of the bitcoin route. BUT will alt coins such as Ethereum ever catch on? Bitcoin has as many retailers are beginning to open up to he idea of accepting bitcoin and even the news features the bitcoin stock prices. But you never heard about Ethereum or any of the other altcoins so is it worth it to jump into altcoin mining? Will the future be bright for mining altcoins?