When the hashing power has decreased and rigs were sold. But yeah people are in denial, that's what gives scam artists alternate cryptocurrencies a free hand.
Deepbit disagrees with you. Over the past month the hash rate there (measured, not estimated) has gone from 5 terahash to 5.5 terahash. It was going up 50 gigahash a day as the price went below $10, and has since flatlined -- but it has not decreased in any measurable way.
*MY* remaining mining hardware is on craigslist, I don't deny it. Already sold two 5830s for $120 each, hoping for a difficulty drop or price pop to sell the last 2. But that won't be the general case until FPGA and ASIC miners make video cards as obsolete as CPUs.
Why do you people still believe there's going to be bitcoin ASICs? How many goddamn times does it have to be drilled into your head that the economics will NEVER work out enough to develop one until BTC are trading for well over $50/coin steadily...
I'm interested to know your assumptions behind your $50 price to justify ASIC mining. Please share if you're willing.
I might be far underestimating the necessary value here, but at $50/BTC (sustainable), it becomes feasible for companies with the large disposable capital necessary to fund ASIC development/fabrication to spend with a reasonable expectation of ROI and possibly size-able profit.
However, that still doesn't negate the fact I've addressed before that even if an ASIC were developed, as long as it was profitable to mine with one, YOU and every individual idiot wanting it wouldn't get their hands on one, because it will ALWAYS be mroe profitable for the one who spend the development capital to simply mine with the fruits of their effort.
ASICs will never have a public adoption if they were to hypothetically developed, because the investors would just put them online and mine for themselves at a much higher profitability than selling the chips. $50 is just my flippant estimation of when a particular set of capital holders feel it's worth their while.