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October 01, 2013, 08:20:42 PM |
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Predictions have been exponential because there are the factors driving the difficulty value are exponential. There will be plateaus, of course. I don't think anyone believes that the difficulty can increase 30% per period forever.
I think the next plateau will be when the difficulty increases to be point where power costs are significant. This will start happening in several months when the Avalon miners are shut off, but power efficiency of new devices is increasing as fast as hashing speeds, so it will probably be another 6 - 8 months before there is a real plateau.
Also, I think that even the plateau will be increasing exponentially as hardware continues to improve, but the rate will be in the Moore's Law range, like the 2011-2012 period was
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