Quote from: ManagingPrime on April 02, 2014, 10:53:17 PM

Quote from: Swordsoffreedom on April 02, 2014, 10:44:01 PM

It can be feasible the problem is that as difficulty rises profits invariably fall so they will need to upgrade their hardware every few months to maximize the profitability of doing so

That said free electricity and a miner can beat selling it back to the system.

As for coins minted depends on the hashing power

The difficulty variable is tough for me since most of these concepts behind BC are fairly new. As i understand it the problem is multi-fold;
1. New more powerful systems coming into the market (if I understand correctly, that curve is getting less steep)
2. Commercial operators coming online with massive amounts of hashing power.
3. The code itself? Or does that go more to BC per block. (something about 2016)

If I understand the challenge correctly, the "life" of a rig could be extended using an APP that turns it on and off based on difficulty. Am I misunderstanding "difficulty"?

Additionally, I would assume that most homeowners would not want to purchase the rigs (some would), but I would propose that unused rigs (those in an area where it's no longer profitable) are leased to the homeowner. In this setup both the hardware owner and the "host" would share in the profits generated.

Well In regards to 1.
It is a relationship to Moores Law where as price goes up processing power increases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
By extension Bitcoin mining is also seeing this trend where we are moving chip size down in mm scales and getting more efficient miners
The curve is getting less steep but each generation brings more hashing power to the network so it likely will not decline any time soon

2. There are commercial operators coming online the ones I am aware of are Asicminers franchised units and Petamine as examples not sure when they will come online though.

3. Bitcoin Halving Days we already had one a while back the next one should be 2017 although it might be a bit early if the miners process transactions a bit faster on average than 10 minute blocks
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

If I understand the challenge correctly, the "life" of a rig could be extended using an APP that turns it on and off based on difficulty. Am I misunderstanding "difficulty"?

I guess you could turn it off based on difficulty and profitability but it makes more sense to just mine the thing until it reaches its lifespan then move it to alt coins that use the same script as bitcoin miners.

Leasing might work best should contact Friedcat that might be a more profitable idea