Yes, ujka, and I am glad you're here to add balance
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.
Don't think so.
We are now at the 200TH/s hashrate and the 'bitcoin price/difficulty' ratio is so low that GPU mining is stopping. FPGA can maybe go some more, but not up to 6200TH/s (that's what 8% constant increase is).
My point is, miners will not add new hashpower, and spend thousands of $ on overpriced hardware, if it's not profitable. At some point they will stop buying. Hardware price must go down, or bitcoin price must go up. Significantly.
Let's look at hardware needed, in the form of KnC 400Gh (still only on paper, but most profitable) for:
8%: 15 000 miners, and $100 000 000
15%: 230 000 miners, and $1 600 000 000
20%: 1 400 000 miners, and $10 000 000 000
40%: 1 000 000 000 miners, and $7 600 000 000 000
Why is it out of bounds to think that we could have 15-20%? The numbers are really high, but if the chips keep improving difficulty is bound to skyrocket. We should see at least one more improvement in the technology available for sale by the time a year is done, and likely more. I'm sure there are people planning the next step, or even the step after that, right now.
I expect at least one more improvement in the technology in a year, too. But by then, the network will also 'grow' and that new technology again will not have such a big impact.
I expected some 'Woouu' for collecting all that data and making those charts. It really took some time.
