I've started to see more and more btc mining equipment start popping up in "for sale" forums, which suggests that individual / small miners are starting to drop out more and more. Am I right in thinking this? If this continues, I guess it'll mean that eventually could just be a few big companies with huge mining farms that will be running the show. Isn't this a bad thing? Excuse my ignorance if I'm way off the mark, but the overall health and balance of network seems to be key to keeping bitcoin stable, I don't think this scenario sounds very healthy?
Economy of scale.
Long term, I expect mining to migrate to locations with access to cheap power, and cheap cooling.
Eventually I expect mining will become a large scale endeavor (something along the scale of the electric grid or phone service).
There *should* be enough competition between the various "mining corporations" to keep the network secure, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
