Nothing prevents you from mining yourself and still confirming transactions if you're the last Bitcoin user in the world.

It depends on how fast the other miners disappeared so that the difficulty can adjust in a timely manner.

If the hash rate drops to fast and you are the last miner left, you will have trouble finding a block and so you actually can't mine new blocks.

Of course, as the last miner in the world you won't have trouble conducting a hard fork the resets the difficulty.

Common sense prevents me. How much value will it still have if there is a single miner? The integrity of the blockchain is ensured by the number of miners.

Also the gold analogy is still flawed.

> The integrity of the blockchain is ensured by the number of miners.

No it is not. Even if you are a single miner you won't be able to pass incorrect transactions, such as moving other people's money or create coins out of nowhere.

51% attack?

You don't seem to understand how 51% attack works. It allows you to roll back correct transactions, but it does not allow you to perform incorrect transactions.

I never claimed otherwise. The ability to manipulate history affects the chain integrity. Perhaps integrity isn't the right word. Consistency?

I'm honestly curious what role Bitcoin has played in the relative stability of gold over the last ~five years.

I'm gonna gamble and guess none

I mean, suc^H^H^Hinvestors have dumped hundreds of millions if not billions into Bitcoin over that same time-frame, I assume it has to be cannibalizing something, and the "the world is ending you better buy gold it only goes up!!!" market is as good a guess as any.

No one says they had to take away money from somewhere. But most likely the stock market. With the markets being up a ton over the last ten years, most HNWIs could have easily borrowed against their shares portfolio at <2% a year and put it into crypto, if they were up for it. (Portfolio) margin debt is at an all time high.

If you had the balls to lever up your portfolio 3x you would have made a killing after the 2008 crash with just a few million in capital, and that's just by investing in the stock market.

Whenever someone buys bitcoin, somebody is selling–the same amount, at the same price. That seller can then use those US$ or EUR they got and buy gold.

There's no value "stored" in bitcoin that is missing anywhere else. It's all in your head.