Quote from: franky1 on November 28, 2018, 03:29:04 PM

Quote from: Pan Troglodytes on November 28, 2018, 02:56:01 PM

Exactly, I have the same observations, I mined back then in 2014 or whatever year it was when bitcoin price started growing and ASICs started to come into play. I learnt a big deal, and I wouldn't have changed it, but the price and difficulty increase made it impossible to mine at some point, so I sold my cards and after short calculation it proved I would have been much better off if I simply bought the same amount in BTC, not mined.

yep and thats exactly what caused the october 2013 price movement. the inception of asics.
ofcourse the hashrate rise would have only caused the price to move up so much, but speculators FOMO'd and over shot the mining cost/btc buy cost equilibrium..
(i too done the math and got(still havenow as a footrest) a avalon 3module 100gh asic from that period Cheesy

)

pools learned the hard way that pushing up hashrate would shoot them in the foot which is why instead of limping along for 2 years in 2014-15. they would play a differnt game this year

this is why when new next gen asics started running in october '18 as "QA testing" cough cough.. pools didnt want to push the hashrate up and spark another FOMO event. as that would just shoot them in the foot again.
so while taking out say 8 old miners they replaced 3 new double efficiency miners of effectively same power as 6 old miners to keep hashrate down. save on costs while making the old miners of competitors lose out. while QA testers profit to be able to sell even in low prices. its just a temporary event.

but anyways this is just temporary dip drama (unrelated to altcoin drama) which when the public delivery of new next gen asics ocurs last week of dcember. we will see the hashrate and price rise and 2019 will start on a positive.

I don't know so much about pools and their motivations, but (if I were part of such an operation at present) I would think that if I miss the newest ASICs, probably my competition will go for it and I will be a loser eventually. And because everybody else is thinking the same, I would rather expect new ASICs to be introduced, although, of course, in the long run, it is shooting your own leg.