Network hashrate has been skyrocketing in the last few days as I suspect this latest batch of cheap L3s are coming online. Difficulty about to jump another 8% or so in a few hours.
I'm positive that Bitmain is feeding the "next release" technology into their own mines. They are mining at higher levels of profitability on the more efficient units. They always do this. Once they've devoured all the creme off the top, they'll release them to us poor saps to gobble the crumbs.