I don't understand the argument that "there are plenty of other coins to mine, so buying more gear is okay"...I mean do people not realize that everyone that has piled on since the mining FOMO started HAS THE EXACT SAME IDEA? What do people think is going to happen to those coins once there's a mass exodus? The difficulty of every coin worth mining is going to go through the roof to where it's no longer profitable until mining profits get to a point where it's no longer worth the work involved for the small profits....
I've been mining for a couple of years and no way I would be adding more gear right now. I have $10k I can spend on GPUs right now but that money is going to ICOs/Trading until all this mining FOMO ends and people start gaining their common sense...
Was just reading through the ETH blog to see when an update for the Ice Age and network congestion may take place and came across this:
https://blog.ethereum.org/2017/05/24/roundup-round-iii/"Because of the rapid increases in block difficulty, the ice age continues to be delayed; current prognosis assuming no further increases (arguably a very pessimistic estimate) is that block times will not exceed 20s until July 12, and will not exceed 30s until Sep 12."
So in roughly 3 weeks block times are going to grow to if not exceed 20s which means less ETH will be created per day...then IF a lot of hash isn't added we're looking at two months before block times go up again creating even less ETH that can be mined per day.
"Oh well if that happens I'm just going to mine ZCash" - so are roughly a few hundred thousand, if not a million+ GPUs will be looking to do the same thing. Any coin worth mining will most likely have razor thin margins up to including mining at a loss if you mine/speculate on a coin no one is currently focused on.
As an experienced miner with gear that has ROI'd many times over, I honestly hope everyone goes all in as that just means there will be more GPUs to scoop up for pennies on the dollar when the FOMO bubbles pop.."those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it" - I pay for my electric out of pocket every month because I'm fortunate to have a good job that pays me well enough that I don't have to cash out coins; as I view it as an investment that has paid off plenty of times over.
Just please don't risk your family's or your own livelihood on something that is pure speculation with all the fomo going on, unless you have a crystal ball sales man I should meet...buying into FOMO when trading is bad, and the same goes for mining FOMO
/soapbox