There won't be an S5 available for retail sale, in my opinion. If BitMain develops an S5, they'll stock their DCs with them and if you're
lucky they offer some cloudmining up for sale. But most likely it will be just another massive private mining operation.
Home mining is dead. But don't lemme stop ya'll from speculatin' & dreamin'.
![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Mining is still alive with cheap electricity. I will agree it's no longer the 3 month roi guarentee. At one time I could be sure to be in profit at 90 days, now my calculations are going longer. I think Bitmain will continue to sell to public as it is a benefit for both, with them selling public the gear is cheaper for them as everything is in bigger quantity.
I do agree there will be a day when most are "cloud mining". As i like hardware i hope it is still a little ways away. Cloud mining is getting cheaper though and will continue to be more and more attractive.
Maybe I'm a month or two premature with my "home mining is dead" prediction. I'm still mining at home with 10THs. But I'm just breaking even after electricity costs at .12kWh. Maybe I should state it like this... Home mining is dead within 60 days for 95% of the current home miners.
As cklovis pointed out in a recent, informative post, home mining only makes up 15% of the current network hashrate. Now take out the group of miners who don't live in the Article Circle, 3rd World countries or the Pacific Northwest and what is left?
Now look into the future a bit. Difficulty will continue to rise (albeit, more slowly) but electricity will certainly not get cheaper for the home miner. Hardware efficiency may marginally improve but it won't likely offset the difficulty rise. And even now without super-cheap electricity, none of the current generation of cutting edge miners will ever earn a positive ROI. And with every efficiency increase, massive mining operations will jump in ahead of home miners with dozens of PHs of new equipment. This will not change, guaranteed!
If home mining isn't completely dead yet, it will soon be time to pull the plug and let it slide into darkness.