I wonder if the spike in estimated difficulty has anything to do with the recent meeting between the Blockstream core devs and the chinese mining pools. At first glance (and if memory serves me correctly), it looks like the Chinese pools are possibly loosing market share compared to what they had very recently.
I believe that there were reports that the blockstream core devs were threatening to quit if the Chinese pools were to start supporting a HF that involves increasing the maximum block size -- or something along those lines (I am unsure as to the reliability of these reports though).
I wonder if the blockstream core devs are possibly running some of their mining equipment (possibly at a loss) on non-chinese pools (and solo mining) in an effort to show the Chinese pools "who is boss". If this is true, then I wonder how long this can, or will last.
Not sure but I don't think this jump makes economic sense.
I have been complaining about btc transaction limit .
We do an average of 300,000 a day with a max of just under 700,000 possible with perfect numbers.
So to have liquid btc we use exchanges. And we just had Bitfinex 'lose' 60 million in btc .
Btc with a no fork rule won't lock those coins via fork. So they stay lost. Btc won't make more room via fork for more transactions so we need to use exchanges . Exchanges get hacked and btc does not protect against the theft.
Eth-eth had a hack or exploit boom crushed it via fork.
Btc is sucking its own cock feels good but leads to nothing.
I see a big move to etc-eth
I buy all real company gear with real warranties . Sold by real sellers like Amazon or newegg.
And if there is an exploit the developers make moves to save the day.
So if you have solid money to invest seven figures eth-etc looks viable.
Now if btc makes a block size adjustment that allows a lot more transactions per day then maybe it does okay.
If not we are good to see a snap crackle pop happen