Who would know the difficulty would be 1000x harder now than last spring. Even though the btc price increased 6x.
Most informed miners should have known the difficulty would be 1000x more than last spring; this is why so many of us tried to warn newer miners - they just didn't listen and assumed we just wanted the mining to ourselves. The price no one can predict though.actually that's not true, most "informed" miners were saying this average 20% increase is unsustainable and not realistic, when few others including myself showed the actual calculator using a profitability decline of 0.001 (20%).
the truth is as long as there is money to be made, the hardware will be produced, resulting in sustained difficulty increase. Only way for difficulty to slow down is if the hardware cost basis becomes unprofitable - and that solely depends on the btc/usd price. If we have a long period of $350/btc, then yes you will see difficulty slow down as hardware production/sales slows. But at the current level, there is no end in sight. Especially with all those new comers pumping out hardware in the THs range now.
The current difficulty is only ~59000TH, 20% is 11800TH, that may seemed like a significant hash power in the old days, but with the new 2-3 TH per unit miners from all the manufacturers. It's really not that much.
The only sure way to predict difficulty is looking at btc/usd.
I am also now a big fan of cex.io, their prices have come down to a level that's very competitive/better than physical hardware, without any of the mining risk, and ability to quickly unload at a moment's notice is invaluable. Doubt i will ever buy another physical miner unless there is a 20%+ discount to the cex price.
