I believe it's a system that is designed to balance itself out as the market grows and adapts. We had the third Bitcoin halving in May and just recently the
largest number of miners in one purchase was made. This would reflect that despite the drop in mining reward companies still recognize a great potential in the industry and are willing to compete for dominance.
• Bitcoins previous halving happened on the 9th of July, 2016, when the coinbase dropped to 12.5
BTC, the price of Bitcoin then was about ~$600.
• The most recent Bitcoin halving dropped it to 6.25
BTC at a market price of about ~$9k.
This is a reflection of how the market can adjust to keep the system profitable. Miners also earn from fees paid on transactions.
In my opinion, you are right, the price of bitcoin will be the determinant. I liked the 2016 and 2020 halving examples you used, but I also remembered in November 2012 before halving, the price of bitcoin was around $12. So
Btc price before 2012 halving: $12Price of btc before 2016 halving: $600Price of btc before 2020 halving: $8900So, like you said, the halving reward is reducing but bitcoin price is increasing which makes miners to be encouraged and mine bitcoin, 2020 has been the year of highest hashes generated by miners and possibly this may still continue to increase because:
More people are getting to know bitcoin and are buying it
Organizations are getting to adopt bitcoin, a good example is the human rights organization.
Even, countries are accepting it the more, recently you can pay in posts offices in Australia in bitcoin now and many more.
The way world are accepting bitcoin, the more the adoption, the more the increase in bitcoin price, if bitcoin price increase, miners will be encouraged, if miners are encouraged, more miners (mining machines) will be used, hashes generated by miners will increase to continually and sufficiently securing bitcoin blockchain.