What happens if miners stop mining? Say a big crash in the price?

[manuel]

Does the difficulty go back down?  Or is it that every time it goes up that's the new floor as far as difficulty?

[Birdy]

Difficulty goes back down.

[Pokerfan]

Difficulty goes down, network finds a new equilibrium. More importantly, miners will not stop mining, because electricity costs are only a small part of their incomes now.

[Birdy]

The hashrate and difficulty have nothing to do with the price.

That's not true, mining for Bitcoins is like another exchange where arbitraging is quite difficult and risky.
E.g. if difficulty is very low, quite a few people will buy mining equipment instead of buying Bitcoins.

It does have an effect on the price, the effect is difficult to estimate though.

[fattypig]

The hashrate and difficulty have nothing to do with the price.

That's not true, mining for Bitcoins is like another exchange where arbitraging is quite difficult and risky.
E.g. if difficulty is very low, quite a few people will buy mining equipment instead of buying Bitcoins.

It does have an effect on the price, the effect is difficult to estimate though.

I would buy ASIC if the difficulty is low or not increasing very fast. Thus price would drop cause I could have bought BTC instead