Zcash difficulty took a pretty big drop today. No clue why but Im going to enjoy it while its here.
There are other equihash coins - might have been a shift to one of those.
Could also be some GPU miners pulling rigs due to low profitability, or shifting to other more profitable coins.
Could also be normal "luck" variation.
I suspect it's a combination of "all of the above" though.
Agree with your points. As a conspiracy theory junkie its more fun to think bitmain is shutting down their units after testing , in order for them to be packaged and shipped.
Don't forget the innosilicon beasts
http://www.innosilicon.com/html/news/26.htmlsupposed they just did a big burn in of 1000 units and packed them for sales
that is 50,000 x 1000 = 50,000,000sols or about 70000 1080ti's
so 70,000 x 700 = 49 million worth of 1080ti's to be replaced by about 10 million in A9's
so 49-10 = 40 million drop in the value of 50,000,000 sols of hash power
most of this is on zcash developers and not having 2 or 3 forks ready to go.
Asic resistance for any new coin is pretty simple just start an algo/new coin with 2 to 3 forks ready for action.
well to all that jumped in on the z9 or A9 good luck.
I went to the forkers I am mining some BTG and holding my own.
I also am hodling: BIS and RVN
One month in and Im a little over 4 zec mined. Lets call it halfway to what I paid.
I suspect the next month wont be as profitable when all the other bigger gear comes online.