Quote from: Blitz on June 17, 2013, 03:50:10 PM

Quote from: BitPirate on June 17, 2013, 02:36:05 PM

Quote from: Blitz on June 17, 2013, 11:52:08 AM

Miners' margin profits have made a new low due to the recent difficulty adjustment: http://blockchain.info/charts/miners-operating-profit-margin?timespan=500days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

As this continues, it will take longer and longer to pay off an ASIC and miners will be forced to liquidate a larger perecentage of the 3600 daily BTC to cover their expenses.

Miners speculatively holding Bitcoins is not the usual state of things. They are a business, and soon they will have extremely tight margins like in the past. I give it 1 or 2 more doublings of the difficulty.

Your statement is entirely contradictory: "They don't normally hold" and "They will sell more now". You can't have it both ways. I suggest you re-examine your logic/biases to ensure your thought process is at least internally consistent.

Selling cheap is a race to the bottom that puts you out of business. If businesses are not making a profit selling cheap... they will sell at a higher price, or hold until the price rises.

TBH, this is just another proof point that we are oversold.

Where is the contradiction? When miners have huge profit margins, they can begin speculating with those. Normally, profit margins are not huge, but currently they still are.

"Selling cheap" or "selling expensively" is nothing of concern for a miner. Their job is to sell periodically to cover their bills and pocket a small profit, they aren't speculators.

I'm describing just this progression.

Hmm I see, sorry I misinterpreted "Miners speculatively holding Bitcoins is not the usual state of things." as "they are not holding now or normally".

Regardless, I still think your logic is off. It is very much a seller's business to set the price. It is every bit their concern, as it is for any business, to set a fair price for the commodity they are selling. If you're not making money selling at your current price, and have fixed and/or increasing costs, "selling more" at the current price is not the solution. That just digs your grave faster. You would do better to switch your rigs off and wait.

Furthermore, I'd also venture that the average ASIC owner CAN afford to pay their bills... It would be a pretty foolhardy investment to mine BTC if you are struggling to make ends meet. I don't doubt that some are mining on the breadline, but I think extrapolating this persona to the overall miner population is a bit fanciful.

Finally, there has been increased supply lately with ASICS coming online prior to the difficulty increase. This will now decrease somewhat.