What about using the coins in cold storage to invest in an ongoing, or start a bitcoin mining operation?
There can not be a profitable bitcoin mining operation, it's a myth. Since almost a year ago all mining hardware is being sold way above the mined BTC price. People a willing to pay more than the equipment is worth because they don't know how to use a mining calculator, and that can not be changed.
Nevertheless, even if for some magical reason there would be realistically priced equipment on the market, buying that would mean you give up the right to divest from JD, you are aware of that? I'm not willing to give up that right.
I think what is happening is that the market is proving the viability of bitcoin by making the cost of mining the coins more than what could be gained from the coins produced.
If people are willing to invest money into mining bitcoins even when it's unprofitable it proves that those people believe that the coins will be more valuable than their current cost of mining them.
For instance, let's say the price of bitcoin moves to 2000 dollars per coin. Those people who had been mining all along will get the full benefit of that profit because everyone else for certain will have quit.
Someone investing in mining bitcoins causes the price of bitcoins to go up because their investments increase the utility of bitcoin both information-ally and directly depending how they purchase the equipment to do the mining. If they buy their gear with bitcoins it increases the utility of the currency.
The most important part to remember is that mining difficultly increasing is not an indication that mining is not profitable. It is an indication that the future price of bitcoin is going to be a lot higher almost always.
Miners that have the most invested will have the largest edge. As far as the efficiency of the individual mining itself that's an entirely different thing. In theory if you could find a way to get a bunch of free electricity and computing power that was cheaper than the super high-tech miners it wouldn't matter what equipment was used to mine the coins.