...I remain unconvinced that the halving will bring new highs for BtC.
Certain informations are already priced in.
That too, but its mostly BTC's negative reasons for growth (listed above) as opposed to Ethereum's positive (e.g. growing developer adoption)
How many BTC pundits have I heard predict the demise of the Russian economy, for example, and the resulting surge for BTC? Whether it happens or not is not the point - its a negative cause of growth.