That's bullshit, and if anything, payout rates could fall under maintenance costs again in the future, making the contracts once again worthless.
It's guaranteed to happen.
Genesis Mining is looking for creative ways to get fresh money to enter their scheme, because the bear market is really pressing on their platform with how people have no incentive to touch anything related to crypto. I honestly consider this move to be one of the last warning signs that people should really pay attention to, because without money entering they can just as easily claim to not be able to pay out anyone due to the lower price higher difficulty, etc.
My best guess is that Genesis Mining will implode if this bear market lasts for another year, or at least will implode before the block halving in 2020.
Absolutely agree with this. At current rates, assuming
this mining calculator is correct, current mining revenue daily per TH is around $0.25, and maintenance fees are $0.14 daily, so that makes current (8/20/18) revenue ~$0.11. A stagnation in price or difficulty going up without BTC prices going up will be catastrophic for this new plan, considering current yearly revenue per TH is just $40.15 after electrical costs, and the upgrade is $180, and that's at current difficulty and costs (difficulty will almost certainly rise).
There's just so much risk involved here with difficulty and if the bear market holds that upgrading is just throwing money away/gambling at this point.