Yes, hashrate will not drop until we hit 30 billion difficulty or so. The only thing that could cause it to drop is a huge drop in BTC. Like down to $50 or below. As long as it stays above 100 we won't see difficulty drop for a long time.
I do see it happen earlier than 30 billion; at that point growth will be slow enough that statistical variation might cause a small drop in difficulty. I guess a massive DDoS could also help. But in general, yeah hashrate isnt going to go down for the foreseeable future. I dont even think a BTC price drop to $50 will do that any time soon, very few people will turn off their expensive asics just because BTC rate imploded "temporarily". Particularly since most of them would still be operationally profitable for quite some time, even at that price.
I would definitely turn off my ASICs if the electricity costing to run them was less than the value of the BTC they were returning. I would take that electricity money I saved and buy BTC with it.
I'd end up with more BTC and the same money spent. The choice is simple.
THIS is what i'm talking about.
others will make the same choice as you; after all this is about making money in the end.
the most efficient machines are the ones that will make it thru the gauntlet over time. what will be interesting is just how fast sub 28nm machines will come online.
