as it never really has had
In all the 2 times that it's happened? The fact that it's never spiked on halving day is just as good a reason to assume it will. The market is a chaotic speculative nightmare.
Yes, the fundamentals of the halving can't kick in until time has passed, but this crisis has pushed back the speculative hype cycle that everyone was expecting to see. Has that pump/dump been eliminated, or is it lurking? Guess we'll find out.
Oh, it might spike. But this market is not completely chaotic. The supply crunch brought about by the halving manifests over a long period of time. There simply is no reason why it should cause a massive rally right out of the gate. The number of newly minted bitcoins in proportion to the entire trading volume is quite small. A rally might take place but without any fundamentals to support it, profit taking will result in a crash at some point. However, when 12-18 months pass, traders will feel the impact of the increased scarcity. That is, assuming that demand hasn't changed. The rising price will drive a larger, delayed speculative rally. Much of the market already knows this, which is why we saw the mid-2019 pump. But the fundamentals weren't there to support it.
I think we have already seen the beginning of the impact of the spanner the crisis has thrown in the works. I think it's likely that there will be a change in Bitcoin's appreciation schedule. I'd love to be wrong, though.