Beginning to think it would have been better if BTC stayed in the sub $20 range.

[bozo333]

Even though I currently mine with 3TH+ (large for a home operation, but no mining farm by any means) I am beginning to think that it was not good for BTC to go big time so quickly.

If mining would have stayed a thing guys do with only CPU or GPU power a few years longer it actually could have built a much stronger shadow infrastructure instead of scaring up regulators, governments and the like.

But now the cat is out of the bag. Mining just might implode under its own weight. If all the people now taking delivery of
their shiny new ASICS miners and only lose money it might get ugly. Will be interesting how it all pans out.

[Nagle]

What's the mean useful life of a mining rig now, from delivery to useless scrap that eats more in power than it produces in coins? Six months? Less?

[cryptillian]

i heard about bitcoin late 2010 thought it was cool but never bothered, heard it again somewhere in 2011 "hey you should try mining bitcoins" nehh and forgot about it again. now i am late at the party but hell why not, i have 2 exspensive space heaters or hash-heaters as it sounds cooler (who doesnt love extra warmth in the summer?) and with the buzzing it gives my normaly quiet extra room the feel of a angry bee hive.
i believe it will be worth it not ready to let the big boys win.

[DrG]

Well what I do know is that's it's nice to see the ASIC manufacturers and large farms dumping BTC for fiat get a kick in the pants.  Their greed created this out of control miner growth - hopefully they will feel the consequences of their greed.

I would be perfectly OK if BTC went back to $17.  I wouldn't be a millionaire, but if the exchange price stayed stable I could actually use it and not speculate on it.

[Korbman]

Even though I currently mine with 3TH+ (large for a home operation, but no mining farm by any means) I am beginning to think that it was not good for BTC to go big time so quickly.

While it's an interesting thought experiment, I think we'd still be in the same situation we are today, just on a different scale. So long as your any generated mining revenue outweighs the associated costs, the network will grow, regardless of whether the price per Bitcoin is $1 or $10,000. The only difference are the players; finding out you can make $1 a day after expenses by toying around with some neat crypto-machines is more of a niche / hobby market...whereas finding out you can make $10,000 a day would draw in the really big players.

Personally, I don't care what the price of Bitcoin is so long as it's stable. I'd love to spend what I have, but the fact that it's $470 today and could be $1,000 tomorrow doesn't help me do anything except horde.

What's the mean useful life of a mining rig now, from delivery to useless scrap that eats more in power than it produces in coins? Six months? Less?

Hard to say since it depends on electricity and/or hosting costs, but even an inefficient CoinTerra rig (1.6TH/s version) is still profitable at nearly BTC0.04 per day (~$20) at this difficulty, and with $7.20 in power costs ($0.15 per kWh). It stops being profitable somewhere around a difficulty of 50B.