If we were still with FPGA and GPU we would have still probably seen an 8-12% rise in the next year right? It's never been lower than that.
Without ASICs, 8% constant increase from feb. 5th, gives 200TH in Jan. 2014.
At $100/btc GPU miners will stop mining, hashrate drops or stays at that level with more efficient FPGAs. Increase in 2014 - none, or few % up or down, depends on btc price, energy cost... Equilibri, says one forum member here.
I meant if there was no spike upward from ASICs at all, we would still see growth in the next couple years from FPGA. At the current prices of ASICs we could have about 15% growth in the year and there would still be a return for those getting their miners ASAP. Prices could go down considerably now that the startup costs have been paid. There are some companies that sell miners like crazy even though they have negative ROI.
Like you say, though, the deciding factor will be if there is profit to be made. With current tech we could average up to 25% before the new chip designs are unprofitable. A good part will depend on the companies. Are there a couple groups nobody knows about working on a design that they will use for their selves? Will all the companies currently using the first generation ASIC designs go to gen 2 or 3? They will have to, to remain competitive.
I agree this won't be like the big spikes of the past. But it will be a well maintained plateau. There are a lot of companies heavily invested in bringing ASICs online. Even if bitcoin tanks and they wont even make their return, they'll still be plugged in by someone, as long as the energy cost vs price and a possibility of future markets exist.
edit - I realized the first sentence is not fully stated, and runs into the next idea.
I was comparing the rate of growth at the end of a cycle of technology still being fairly high, and that you would expect the new tech to have a significant impact.