This article is pretty much exactly like what was going around before the last halving. Everyone does know that Bitcoin started with 50 coins per block, and a halving has already taken place right? Last halving, there was no major change in the hash rate, and the Bitcoin price stayed constant for a little while. That said, the price increased rather dramatically a few months before the halving.
I'd expect the same thing will happen again this time around. If I had to take a stab at it, Bitcoin price will go up within the next month in preparation from the halving. It makes common sense to people with the block reward halved, fewer BTC come into circulation every day, increase in scarcity, price should increase. They will stock up on coins like I said a month or two before the halving. The increased price will keep miners mining even after the halving, and then the price will find a normal point.
The nature of ASICs in themselves makes it semi rediculous for people to believe that people will just stop mining. If you stop mining, then you just have the machines laying around. As long as their power consumption doesn't cost more than they mine per day, people are going to keep mining. Even if the network hash dropped, it would just be mildly inconvient until the next retarget.
It was interesting to speculate on the outcome the first time the halving occured, but why do people believe that under the same circumstances, things will be different this time around?
*edit* Just grabbed a difficulty chart from the first halving. The first halving was November 28th 2012, the chart view is September 2012 to Feb 2013
And heres the price from June 2012 to Feb 2013. I backed it up a few months so you could see what I meant about the price increase before the halving, staying pretty constant for a while after, and then the price adjusted.
