As a friend suggested to me, the influx of market cap within this "halvening" period is really showing the demand in other countries. If this momentum persists and demand steadily continues to rise, spreads widen, we can almost surely see it grinding upwards. In my opinion after the halving, while the price of a coin will be lower, the value will still be there.
In terms of mining, inflation, and deflation; These are still foreign concepts to me, but taking an educated guess (from left field) what we saw 3 years ago with pretty much the only exchange functioning before it quit and turned into a fugazi, was quite possibly its first halve.
Interesting.