A rally is inevitable

[mynameismud]

I don't understand why so many people make the statement that GPU mining is dead. It may be dead for BTC but there are still plenty of alt currencies that can turn a respectable profit with little upfront investment. With the ability to trade alt coins for BTC on many exchanges it seems like GPU mining is still perfectly viable meaning that the entry fee into the BTC market is still within reach of many individuals. There may be a lower return than in the past but it's still sustainable for many alt coins at current difficulty levels and block rewards (particularly if you have a means of getting power for free). I'm no expert on crypto currency by any means but it seems to me that unless I'm missing something (which is very possible) that GPU mining is still very much alive and kicking and is a viable option for those looking to make some extra coin by putting their gaming computers to work while they're not gaming.

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[Akka]

There are even services like middlecoin.com, which always mine the most providable altcoin, directly sell it and pay you out in BTC.

Year, put this is mining without purpose (from a BTC perspective), so enjoy it while it lasts.

*For all that don't know it (seem to be a lot recently) the purpose of mining is to secure the network and not to print money.

[matt608]

I think that we are already at the stage where no future mining investment will pay for itself. This means fewer miners and therefore fewer people with Bitcoin to spend. This either means that Bitcoins become more valuable because they are harder and more costly acquire or, more likely, the whole thing will pretty much die because business won't bother to make the investment to accept it because there are fewer people with it and so it will lose its current popularity and never gain any more traction.

The best thing going for Bitcoin was the democracy of mining in that anybody with a graphics card can generate a small amount, now you need serious investment in ASIC kit that is unlikely to make a return. All the GPU's are now useless and so the generation phase that was anticipated in the original design has ended. Without significant market share and large transactions fees, its pointless for anybody to make an investment in mining.

So my prediction is a slow downward spiral in value from now on. Meanwhile hash rates will continue to rocket until the ASIC manufacturers start to fold resulting in one or two large miners left operating i.e. a large likelihood of the dreaded 51% scenario. Then Bitcoin will be truly worthless.

It's a real shame, I really wanted it to succeed but I think ASIC's came too soon in its life cycle and killed it.

I disagree, ASICS are populating the world, thousands and thousands of them being built and sold.  Bitcoin mining is the only thing an ASIC does, once someone has an ASIC they are a guaranteed bitcoin supporter.  The ASIC population of the world is setting up the basic network, the core (dispersed) infrastructure that forms the foundation of bitcoin's future.  

It will just take a few years for the whole thing to be rolled out:  Mass-ASICS and an upgrade of the exchanges is what's currently happening.  ASICS aren't killing bitcoin at all, they are simply the foundation and they will get cheaper too, and having a network of tens of thousands of ASICS (will probably end up being hundreds of thousands) is plenty!  We don't all need to be mining.

More companies developing ASICS is good news!  More ASICS being built at all is good news, after all, they are BITCOIN ASICS!

[johnyj]

Yes, in order to protect the income of my ASICs,　I will step into exchanges and purchase a lot of bitcoins

[ElectricMucus]

Yes, in order to protect the income of my ASICs,　I will step into exchanges and purchase a lot of bitcoins

I do actually believe you.

[Le Happy Merchant]

How is that 20% estimate holding up?

[solex]

I disagree, ASICS are populating the world, thousands and thousands of them being built and sold.  Bitcoin mining is the only thing an ASIC does, once someone has an ASIC they are a guaranteed bitcoin supporter.  The ASIC population of the world is setting up the basic network, the core (dispersed) infrastructure that forms the foundation of bitcoin's future.  

It will just take a few years for the whole thing to be rolled out:  Mass-ASICS and an upgrade of the exchanges is what's currently happening.  ASICS aren't killing bitcoin at all, they are simply the foundation and they will get cheaper too, and having a network of tens of thousands of ASICS (will probably end up being hundreds of thousands) is plenty!  We don't all need to be mining.

More companies developing ASICS is good news!  More ASICS being built at all is good news, after all, they are BITCOIN ASICS!

(my bold emphasis)

Absolutely. ASICs are solid-rocket boosters for Bitcoin. With Bloomberg on the verge of legitimizing this revolutionary currency, Core Dev with a load of point-fo-sale improvements I agree with the OP. A rally is inevitable!

[byronbb]

Difficulty follows price not verse visa, this has been debated to death already (tip to OP your side always loses)
So if people overdid it with their mining investment, they made a bad investment, and that's it.

It will get to the point where ASICs don't even pay for the electricity it costs to run them, it happend with GPUs and it will happen again.

You have to actually poke holes in OPs logic, not re-state and mis-apply an old concept.

[ElectricMucus]

I disagree, ASICS are populating the world, thousands and thousands of them being built and sold.  Bitcoin mining is the only thing an ASIC does, once someone has an ASIC they are a guaranteed bitcoin supporter.  The ASIC population of the world is setting up the basic network, the core (dispersed) infrastructure that forms the foundation of bitcoin's future. 

It will just take a few years for the whole thing to be rolled out:  Mass-ASICS and an upgrade of the exchanges is what's currently happening.  ASICS aren't killing bitcoin at all, they are simply the foundation and they will get cheaper too, and having a network of tens of thousands of ASICS (will probably end up being hundreds of thousands) is plenty!  We don't all need to be mining.

More companies developing ASICS is good news!  More ASICS being built at all is good news, after all, they are BITCOIN ASICS!

(my bold emphasis)

Absolutely. ASICs are solid-rocket boosters for Bitcoin. With Bloomberg on the verge of legitimizing this revolutionary currency, Core Dev with a load of point-fo-sale improvements I agree with the OP. A rally is inevitable!

where are you on this picture?

[Impaler]

Why will they dump their coins because of increased competition? If I recieved less coins, I would hold on to them stronger than before.

And if you buy ASICs with bitcoins, don't you want bitcoins back (not FIAT)?

That's true for small miners, that only run them to get BTC. The guys that run big farms have significant operational costs that have to be covered by selling part of their mining income.

As mining provability decreases, the % of BTC that they have to sell immediately to cover their expenses increases. Therefore the overall % of fresh mined BTC that are sold immediately increases.

But honestly, at this point I don't think that mined BTC have a significant impact on the exchange rate anymore.

To the rally, I don't think we will see a real increase in Value in the next 6 Month or even longer. But that's OK.

All the "big names" we have in BTC now are people that joined it during the 2011 Bubble, staid after in and build the services that made BTC what it is today.

This time 100th the amount of people as during the 2011 Bubble came into Bitcoin, if the same % as 2011 stay and start building services they will harvest the fruits in ~2 Years. But for that I believe it's better if it gets a litte more silent around BTC for a while.

Finally someone gets it.

[johnyj]

Difficulty follows price not verse visa, this has been debated to death already (tip to OP your side always loses)
So if people overdid it with their mining investment, they made a bad investment, and that's it.

It will get to the point where ASICs don't even pay for the electricity it costs to run them, it happend with GPUs and it will happen again.

Market usually price in what will happen in 6 months, the price rally in April basically priced in the difficulty change through October. That's most of the smart money's prediction ability, and that's basically what happened: Difficulty rose by 20 times, price rose from 10 to 200.

Of course, a better prediction should be based on number of participants and how much each of them are willing to invest in bitcoin, but difficulty is a good indicator of supply and demand change (more hash power competing for same amount of coins). The fast increase in difficulty just showed how many people are willing to invest in bitcoin, it is difficult to imagine if someone are totally not interested in bitcoin would like to buy a ASIC mining device

Based on latest data, we are seeing more and more ASIC manufacturers establishing, especially that mysterious phoenixasic.com, if they indeed decided to throw 200 million USD for the project, I'm sure there must be some other insider movement we don't know

Bitcoin's market value is still very small, considering those 30 trillion dollars in tax heaven off-shore accounts, even a tiny bit of those stash will push the exchange rate up several magnitude. If you are a super rich guy and your life are so boring since you already had everything you want, what will be the new fun for your life besides gambling? Bitcoin of course  

Just like internet, bitcoin never existed in human history, and almost everything in bitcoin is against traditional wisdom, people will always be surprised but highly attracted, the more they study it, the more interesting aspect they will discover, and it will almost certainly make people to reconsider the idea of money, which they have been ignoring most of their life

[johnyj]

Latest difficulty jump: 35.88% 

[thezerg]

Yes, in order to protect the income of my ASICs,　I will step into exchanges and purchase a lot of bitcoins

I do actually believe you.

yes, a miner is more likely to buy coins and spend them.  And more likely to encourage others to do so.

Also, consider that there is very little "efficiencies of scale" involved in taking a black box plugging it into power and ethernet and turning it on.  So large miners do not have significant advantages over others.

ASICs are pretty cheap per unit once NRE is paid, so bitcoin miner device prices will crash.  Once that happens electricity costs become important.  At that point, people with cheap or free electricity or a use for the incidental byproduct (heat) will have a definite advantage over large miners. 

So I expect that as the ROI -> 0, mining will decentralize back into a "hobbiest" domain and be used to consume excess power (summertime personal solar cells for example) and provide supplemental heat for homes.  But of course this won't happen at the current mining rig premium.  The will happen once Moore's law stops being applicable.  As long as access to the latest ASICS lets you mine most of the coins centralization makes sense.

[ElectricMucus]

Yes, in order to protect the income of my ASICs,　I will step into exchanges and purchase a lot of bitcoins

I do actually believe you.

yes, a miner is more likely to buy coins and spend them.  And more likely to encourage others to do so.

Sunk costs.

[johnyj]

Most of the recent difficulty jump are 30%, generated from BFL mass shipping, bitfury deployment and together with kncminer's 28nm ASICs launch, these all make the coin much more difficult to get for anyone

The silk road shutdown just showed that currently no any kind of negative news could affect the bullish trend of bitcoin. People usually say, if the price don't fall when it should fall, then it will rise later, we are going to see a rally very soon, target area at least $500

[adamstgBit]

Most of the recent difficulty jump are 30%, generated from BFL mass shipping, bitfury deployment and together with kncminer's 28nm ASICs launch, these all make the coin much more difficult to get for anyone

The silk road shutdown just showed that currently no any kind of negative news could affect the bullish trend of bitcoin. People usually say, if the price don't fall when it should fall, then it will rise later, we are going to see a rally very soon, target area at least $500

I believe!

[TERA]

Most of the recent difficulty jump are 30%, generated from BFL mass shipping, bitfury deployment and together with kncminer's 28nm ASICs launch, these all make the coin much more difficult to get for anyone

The silk road shutdown just showed that currently no any kind of negative news could affect the bullish trend of bitcoin. People usually say, if the price don't fall when it should fall, then it will rise later, we are going to see a rally very soon, target area at least $500

I can give you a corrolary: We've had all the bullish news in the world yet can't pass the same resistance level after 2 months.

This tells me were maxed out for now at the highest possible sentiment. Now what if the bullish news stops, or what if there's some bearish news? The sr crash shows the stagnant market is a ticking bomb waiting to go down at the slightest change of sentiment.

[tutkarz]

Most of the recent difficulty jump are 30%, generated from BFL mass shipping, bitfury deployment and together with kncminer's 28nm ASICs launch, these all make the coin much more difficult to get for anyone

The silk road shutdown just showed that currently no any kind of negative news could affect the bullish trend of bitcoin. People usually say, if the price don't fall when it should fall, then it will rise later, we are going to see a rally very soon, target area at least $500

I can give you a corrolary: We've had all the bullish news in the world yet can't pass the same resistance level after 2 months.

This tells me were maxed out for now at the highest possible sentiment. Now what if the bullish news stops, or what if there's some bearish news? The sr crash shows the stagnant market is a ticking bomb waiting to go down at the slightest change of sentiment.

I don't agree with that. We are not maxed out because every new bitcoin business slowly brings more people to the table who by using bitcoins take them from the market. We are just building up and everything is ahead of us. There are still many many people who don't know how to benefit from bitcoin .

[TERA]

Most of the recent difficulty jump are 30%, generated from BFL mass shipping, bitfury deployment and together with kncminer's 28nm ASICs launch, these all make the coin much more difficult to get for anyone

The silk road shutdown just showed that currently no any kind of negative news could affect the bullish trend of bitcoin. People usually say, if the price don't fall when it should fall, then it will rise later, we are going to see a rally very soon, target area at least $500

I can give you a corrolary: We've had all the bullish news in the world yet can't pass the same resistance level after 2 months.

This tells me were maxed out for now at the highest possible sentiment. Now what if the bullish news stops, or what if there's some bearish news? The sr crash shows the stagnant market is a ticking bomb waiting to go down at the slightest change of sentiment.

I don't agree with that. We are not maxed out because every new bitcoin business slowly brings more people to the table who by using bitcoins take them from the market. We are just building up and everything is ahead of us. There are still many many people who don't know how to benefit from bitcoin .

Well bitcoin itself isn't maxed out but the sentiment given the current state of bitcoin IS maxed out. This means that in order for bitcoin to move forward, some significant and corporeal development needs to occur, and this is certainly possible. However, the level of effort needed for bitcoin to drop is relatively minor. Some simple event can occur, such as... mtgox enables withdrawals. Actually, merely the sentiment needs to reverse, which can occur via something psychological.

Some keywords we haven't seen in a while: mtgox, withdrawal, bankruptcy, hacker, worm, legislation, fork, capitulation, winklevoss, scalability.

[MerchantMiner]

Most of the recent difficulty jump are 30%, generated from BFL mass shipping, bitfury deployment and together with kncminer's 28nm ASICs launch, these all make the coin much more difficult to get for anyone

The silk road shutdown just showed that currently no any kind of negative news could affect the bullish trend of bitcoin. People usually say, if the price don't fall when it should fall, then it will rise later, we are going to see a rally very soon, target area at least $500

I believe!

+1

His right the price should rise and reach the value we all put on it , i think around £1000 per coin end of next year