In my opinion, I think it's safe to finally say that the industry is killing itself. Since Bitmain is the undisputed champ in the manufacture of the mining wars, they have serious weight and influence over the difficulty and hashing contribution to the network. Before this recent s7 mayhem, you'd be able to ROI and maintain some reasonable level of difficulty so you can rely on a certain level of revenue over time. But now, it's impossible to calculate and scale effectively.

For example, I ordered my s7's in the middle of November. On November 11th, the difficulty was 65million. Less than 3 months later, the next estimated difficulty hitting in 3.2 days, is 144 million (more than double). But the price of bitcoin hasn't doubled during that same time frame either.

Furthermore, each new batch of miners is significantly cheaper than the last. The batch 7 miners I bought cost me roughly $1450 each. 3 batches (and 4 months later), the price is half that.

So how can a bitcoin miner be able to predict an ROI anymore? It's impossible.

I see the antminer s7 price drops as a sign that bitmain doesn't care about bitcoin, or the miners anymore. They care about making money and adding as much hashing power as possible. Because lowering your s7 price by 50% within 3 months when you know the miner who bought 3 months ago didn't make $750 in bitcoin during that same duration of time, is just plain wrong.

This is the sad state of affairs for miners now. You used to be competitive for 6-12 months with equipment. Now, you're not even competitive a month later. And with resale values kept low in the interim, since bitmain is still selling versions for 50% less than what you paid, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.