The price should not be the only one to check to see if there is interest. The hash power too must be checked regularly. I believe when true interest in ETC has taken place, the hash power will be the first one to go up in anticipation of the price going up. Miners will be there fighting for coins first before the traders realize that there is a gold rush on going.
To me, both are linked. Normally, the hash rate should be given by the price, because a miner with given equipment will mine when it is profitable to do so which will drive up the hash rate until the margin taken is not worth it any more.
Of course, mining is a way to "buy coins with electricity", but I don't think the mining can influence much the price, because the volumes traded are much larger than the amount of coins mined in the same period. (this is the same argument of why from a purely offer and demand perspective, the bitcoin halving didn't have much effect on the price: the traded volumes are much higher than the 1800 coins less mined a day).
So if mining cannot influence much the price (small compared to daily volume), but the price will determine the hash rate, I think that the important variable is the price. The hash rate is an almost direct consequence of it. I don't see miners suddenly increase mining to get more coins at lower market price, if they can buy them cheaper on the market, than the electricity they spend on it btw.
