Just to get a piece of the bitcoin pie I had to get a 30 GH/s bitcoin miner. I waited for nearly a year to receive it 10 months.
I looked at the thing as an investment against my bank. My bank gave me 1 cent a month. bitcoin is almost sure to be more profitable. I really don't like the amount of ASICS that are being deployed. I really doubt anyone will keep mining when there is another drop in the bitcoin reward.
To tie such amounts of money in mining equipment is ridiculous.
Let's think of the amount of damage is being done in the name of Bitcoin to make all these cheap factory made chips.
The amount of electricity being wasted to keep the network hashing at an insane pace.
If only we weren't so damn greedy. And as I'm talking I'm using 120 watts 24/7 just to mine. I'm legitimately hurting the environment in which we all live in. And what for? A tiny little return on investment.
Then again I can buy myself a Bitcoin miner shirt from BitPride and pat myself on the back.
When does bitcoin miner turn to bitcoin traitor. I don't know. We (the miners) have essentially blocked 99% of humanity from having the ability to mine bitcoin.
Of course there is LTC and other cryptos but those pale in comparison compared to bitcoin and the mere fact that there are other crypto-currencies doesn't mean we should just demolish bitcoin to go to another currency.
Something you're overlooking is the more hashing power the network has the more expensive and difficult it will be to attack the network. It's not wasted money and electricity. You might as well count the number of light bulbs per bank, multiply their power usage, and say that traditional banking hurts the environment. That's not even counting the massive server farms that handle current electronic transactions in the traditional money infrastructure.