Shut down half the oil wells thereby reducing supply by half. What happens to the price of a barrel of oil in the light of increased scarcity? How do market speculators react as a result and how do their actions affect the price?
This isn't a matter of my opinion or what I think.
Meh, I dont think that is how supply/demand actually works. We are not making them more scarce - we are just reducing the rate by which we are increasing supply. There will be more bitcoins at the end of each day after the halving - not less.
And scarcity itself is not a generator of increased demand. Just because something is scarce, it does not follow that there will be a surge in demand. There needs to be an inherent demand for it. And that demand needs to increase of itself.
Go back to Nov2012, the last halving and notice that there was no major bump in price, and arguably the drop from 50 to 25 was a far bigger 'scarcity' jump than this one. Indeed, the mid 2013 rally was more to do with bank bail-ins and mt-gox front running than any added scarcity.
btw - the oil analogy is wrong. Oil is consumed - after you buy it, you burn it and it is gone. You need to pull more out of the ground. Its different with bitcoin. They are not consumed, merely traded.