With the OPEC collusion of purposely oversupplying oil to stop US/Canada Shale production has a byproduct, cheap gas. In Texas I have seen gas as low as $1.65 when paying with debit or cash. The byproduct of this cheap gas is that the Texas economy that survived the great recession relatively well because of high gas prices, will contract. All of the oil companies are laying people off and in another month or two it will get much worse, unless OPEC reduces supply. Unfortunately, they have stated they have no plans to do so. What will ultimately happen is they will bankrupt a large number of small to medium oil exploration/speculation companies, then once the weeding is done they will constrict supply and oil will swing high again. This will affect all of North America, not just Texas.
I can see some serious trouble coming from ISIS in the Middle East after the Russians hit "anti-Assad" forces, which from some articles I read were actually the anti-ISIS forces. The accuracy of all of this is even hazy on the BBC, so not going to bother with the spin in the US. Ultimately, you have two super powers with unaligned efforts fighting a proxy war in Syria over Assad and ISIS fighting everyone. I see the civil unrest in the Middle East causing tremendous unrest in the market. Just the whiff of ISIS hitting oil production will cause a market panic.
So, in the next three or four months I am bullish on btc value. Will it hit $500 by the halving, I don't think it will. I think we may see it in the $260-280 range by the end of the year and then a ramp up somewhere in the low $300-325's before the halving. After the halving I think the death of the normal home miner will cause hoarding and buying instead of mining, which is the time I can see it creeping up to $400.
Granted, this is my opinion on the price between now and a couple of months after the halving. I am a newbie, what do I know!
Ufo