This will only affect the flow of new, mined bitcoins which are a small percentage of the total supply. Bitcoin's protocol also has a difficulty adjustment built into it, so when hashrate goes down mining difficulty goes down to compensate so the rate of new bitcoins being mined stays pretty even over time.

Maybe. That also depends on if demand is there to increase the price also. I can have a one of a kind piece of art work. Yet because it looks like something I scratched out on a napkin a few mins ago (I did) it is still not worth much. As there is low demand.

Assets like this can do that. Where the demand is there just because everyone else is demanding it (oil had this a few years ago). But if that demand collapses so will the price.

I think the alg has a built in rate limiter too to pick up the slack. That limiter can go up or down too. Keeping new supply coming in at a particular rate.

Overall though bitcoin looks like a deflationary style monetary system. So speculation will be more common too.

dear hacker news community, don't downvote someone for asking a question.