"We're reaching the limits where we have Intel, the largest chip manufacturer with the deepest pockets — they're now having to delay their [14 nm] Broadwell chip," he told BI at the InsideBitcoins conference Tuesday. "If they're not able to do 14 nanometers, I'm not sure if an ASIC [Bitcoin mining] machine can beat Intel. So I think we're going to hit a plateau of 28 or 20 [nanometers]."
It will take some time for the computing rate on the Bitcoin network itself to start flattening out, since it's determined by an additional set of cost inputs that reflect the absolute number of miners in the system. So things like lower chips production costs, higher bitcoin prices, and greater investment could cause the line in the following chart to keep rising.
