Technically we could easily go under $1.00. It will be very interesting to see how many keep mining as we drop here. The trend is definitely down.
The nominal price of BTC only matters is miner intends to HOLD BTC.
For a miner who mines and sells on a regular basis Price * Difficulty is a better measure of profitability.
For example a miner generates same amount of revenue (in $) with either:
$100BTC & 1777774.48 difficultly
$1.00BTC & 17777.7448 difficultly
$0.01BTC & 17777.7448 difficultly
$0.001BTC & 177.777448 difficultly
I will now be mining at a loss but I will keep mining. I'm in this for the long haul and will accept the "investment cost" of electricity. When I was buying silver I was parting with cash and now the metal just sits there for future use. The risk is MUCH higher for the BTC though.
Why? When you were investing in silver if you could buy it for $4/oz or mine it yourself for $9/oz which would be a better investment.
If your cost to "build" one BTC is $4.00 and you can simply buy BTC on the market for $3.00 why would you overpay?
EVERYONE buys BTC. Miner just buy it indirectly in the form of electricity and amortized hardware.
LOL! You are so right. Ever since I wrote that I've been thinking about it..... Why would I depreciate my gear when I could take the cash and buy MORE BTC?
Difficulty is going to plummet. I'd say I'll have the miners shut down for maybe a month.