Unless an operation has exclusive tie up with ASIC manufacturers, it is very difficult now-a-days to run a profitable cloud mining service.
Correct.
At around $4-500 per Bitcoin coin, the difficulty limit for breakeven mining under the best conditions was around 100 billion. With the price basically cut in half, we are basically there or rapidly approaching that point. I have been staying up the last few nights thinking about where we go from here. Satoshi gave us Bitcoin which is wonderful but I think we are seeing evidence that he was wrong on one critical point. Bitcoin can not survive long-term based on a model where human greed and self-interest is what secures the value of the network via mining. It worked while it was still GPU mining via off the shelf hardware and the mining was decentralized enough to keep it profitable, while at the same time the hardware investments could be resold or refurbished for other uses if it didn't work out. Now it is a straight speculative bet based on future price and difficulty movements and once it unprofitable, it is basically trash for the most part. The ASIC manufacturers that are legit and solvent on in control at this point and I am doubtful that control will ever be wrung from them while Bitcoin is a going concern or unless the developers take a drastic action.
