I think being 2weeks since July 24th we can conclude that the spike was not random network variance. The 10% spike was most likely new ASICs going online. The 10% gradual increase in the past 10 days was perhaps other algo users switching to ETH as their algos fell to ASIC (which is ironic since ETH is no longer a GPU haven).
Anybody mining ETH right now on GPU either has dirt cheap power or is mining Hopium because the cards like the 1070 and the 1080 are depreciating faster than the value of the ETH they can mine. Even Ryzen 2 CPUs are tanking in price with Ryzen 3 CPUs spanking everything.
Drop the tinfoil hat, its not new asics coming online. People are just mad that some huge farms are opening shop in countries with stupidly cheap electricity costs.
Tinfoil hat? I've been around since 2011. I know there are new ASICs coming online but not from the normal players... I don't know what all the normal players are doing with their new hardware since China has clamped down on BTC again. There are no new places in the world with "stupid cheap electricity" that haven't been known since 2013.
I'll be in Shanghai shortly so I'll be able to see what new toys my Chinese buddies have.
Huge GPU farms my butt. Payback time on any card is still over 1 year with ETH. In that time you could pump and dump ETH/BTC and make 3x the money without lifting a finger. Anybody with enough capitol for a "huge" farm isn't pushing GPU mining on ETH.