Quote from: necron40k on July 10, 2013, 05:52:20 PM

Does anybody think rising hashrate and difficulty push smaller asic miners to other sha256 coins? For example all of these usb miner sticks may be obsolete in 6-12 months so where do those owners turn? Coins like terracoin or ppcoin start looking good since the asics can't scrypt mine LTC.

I would imagine some would. The early pioneers of bitcoin mining may soon be irrelevant in the btc mining industry. As btc mining starts going into a direction of industrialization, the folks who enjoyed mining will look towards other digital currencies. However, the folks who are more interested in being part of a mainstream digital currency will put their efforts in pushing btc even further mainstream through a variety of means. As for what is that next coin? That is difficult to determine. It would be a combination of the miners involved, community support, etc...