Well, this is what my Genesis contract has to say about my lifetime SHA mining.
Term: The contract has no fixed and predetermined end date.
2. Remuneration
As a consideration for the Services the Customer agrees to pay to the Service Provider an amount of
(the "Fee"):
a. 0.XXXXXXX USD per GH/s upfront
b. USD 0.XXXXX per GH/s and day, deducted on a daily basis* from the generated Coins
4. Term
a. This Agreement is entered into for the term indicated above.
b. The Service Provider may terminate this Agreement with immediate effect if the Coins
generated in the preceding 20 days do not suffice to pay the Fee under 2.b above.
c. Otherwise, this Agreement may only be terminated by either party for good cause (aus
wichtigem Grund).
d. In the event of a termination for good cause by the Customer, and, for the avoidance of doubt
in any such event, the Customer shall be entitled to a repayment of item 2.a above in the
proportion of the time lapsed since the beginning of the Term divided by the Term.
e. In case the Service Provider voluntarily agrees to refund the Customer, a processing fee of USD
10 will be deducted.
*if, on any day, Coins generated on one day do not suffice to pay item 2 of the Fee above, the Service Provider may
use Coins generated on any day thereafter for such payment.
So a lifetime contract is not necessarily forever, but as long as the mining remains profitable.
I popped in here today to see what people were saying as I've seen the payments drop drastically in the last couple of months. I've been a customer for almost a year, and have seen both drops and increases in payments, but they usually mapped to changes in BTC value or difficulty, which makes sense.
Coming up on a year, I was planning to increase my hashrate with Genesis as their overall service has been good and has instilled confidence. They dropped my maintenance fees, offered constant communication and updates and generally made me feel like a valued customer. However with the developments as of late, I believe it may just be better to buy and hold some BTC with the funds I have been setting aside.
I completely understand that there is the additional element of "finding blocks" to take into the mix. In closely monitoring my returns I have, as others mention in this thread noticed that increases in payouts come slowly and are much smaller when BTC value goes up or difficulty drops than the opposite. In addition, Genesis refuses to provide proof of hashrate or report blocks found to their investors making verifying those payouts are accurate difficult if not impossible.
I also looked at this as a long term investment and not a quick payoff. I am close to my ROI point, so the contract being terminated at this point wouldn't hurt too much, but does nothing for what I saw as one of the few "solid" cloud mining organizations.
It is concerning to see payouts drop so low, and will be sad to see what I was hoping would be a long-term relationship end, but it is looking like that is the direction this is headed in.
I appreciate that there are still payouts coming to my wallet Genesis, but it might be time to consider sharing a little more detail with your customer base about the blocks you are finding. I for one will be holding back on any further investments until such time as there is more clarity into exactly what is going on and will content myself with the dribble into my wallet as long as it keeps coming.
I wonder what will the supporters say since their contracts are creeping towards nullification too. 