I've been an adherent to the Peak Oil theory for nearly 15 years and it has been very illuminating in how things have progressed economically since 2004.

First you must understand what the term Peaking means.. It does NOT mean, it is gone. In the term Peak Oil, it is always incorrectly characterized as "Running out of Oil".  That is incorrect.. What it means is that the 1st half of the total has been found and brought to market...

In the Peak Oil theory there is much argument about "HOW MUCH" oil there is, so Peak Oil is just that.. A Theory...

Bit Coin is a knowable quantity by design.. The peak of Bitcoin is upon us... And to understand what that means will help you in the future in making decisions about mining(Drilling??) and whether it will be worth it..

The low hanging fruit is gone.. USB miners in their dorm room gave way to ingenious(although still rag tag) rigs that had 12 or 20 video cards...

This could be akin to the early days of oil wildcating. Anyone with a pipe some land a drill could be an oil speculator.. This then gave way to the first commercial drillers and specialized equipment, which gave way to even more specialized equipment and finally the backyard driller was only doing it because they didn't understand the concept of ROI or more specifically EROI(Energy Return On Energy Invested)...

The parallels are almost 1 to 1 in the Bitcoin experience.. We are in the 1920's of Bitcoin mining.. Commercial interests are now pushing out the small miners because they have massive amounts of capital and can survive with very small return because they have entire warehouses full of ASICs hashing power.. Like a Drill who owns 1000's of acres and has 10,000 well heads all with the latest drilling and pumping equipment...

But if I am right and this is the 1920's of Bitcoin mining(drilling), then there is HOPE..


In the case of Oil, there turned out to be SHIT TONS of it left in the ground in 1920... The middle east, the north bank, Gulf of Mexico, Venezuala, etc...  

In the case of Bitcoin there is a foreseeable end to the mining function.  This was not the case in the oil industry(or fill in any commodity mining)...  As more people chased oil and brought it to market, the price DROPPED.. Sometimes to nearly zero, and only through massive government intervention was the price of oil kept high enough to let the big producers make a profit..

This isn't the case with Bitcoin.. There is a knowable end.. We are at or near Peak.. Meaning the 50% of the bitcoins mined were by far the easiest to get.. The next 50% will be orders of magnitude harder to mine.. BUT, assuming that Bitcoin isn't somehow stopped, the price should continue to climb making mining those last marginal coin profitable in the longer run(maybe not in the 12 to 18 month hardware cost return)..

Think about the guys who mined 10 bitcoins with those older rigs that they put thousands and thousands of dollars into. They likely lost a lot of money back then, but if they held those 10 bitcoins they are now sitting on nearly 100k or more....