Two weeks ago the ratio of difficulty was:
15000 / 877227 = 0.017099
And the exchange rate hit 0.14 as the high and average in the 0.06 to 0.08 range. That is a huge multiplication of value.
Like I said a few weeks back I was mining namecoins at 15000 difficulty and selling them for 2.5 times the amount of bitcoins I could get by pool mining.
![Grin](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
But don't take my advice/word for it, look and see for yourself.
Hope this helps you.
I was there, and it was sweet
Up until I discovered NMC I wasn't sure if I'd get my money back on my mining kit, then I ran across a thread about it (1 and a half weeks before the NMC rush). Done a load of research for about a week, then switched my miners over to see how they did. Then some days later others stated to join, and the price of NMC went from 0.006 BTC to 0.09 !!!!!! and I sold, mined, sold, mined.... lovely
It didn't last long, but it lasted long enough for me to make my money back and actually be over $1k up
![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
Now, the forecasted difficulty is plummeting... curently a 67% decrease on the 30th of July
The price has been fluctuating between 0.02 and 0.03, which with the current difficulty, is not more profitable than mining BTC... at least not for the miners who like to mine then sell ASAP.
I have my miners ready to jump ship just as soon as NMC mining is more profitable
![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)