It is looking less and less likely a chain split will happen. This means there will be one version of bitcoin on August 1, 2017. Bitcoin miners are now supporting segregated witness as a soft fork into bitcoin as part of Barry Silbert’s ‘Segwit2x’ agreement. This is great
… except for the ‘2X’ part of the agreement. This represents a hard fork of the bitcoin network, which will DEFINITELY result in two currencies. As far as I know, there isn’t a concrete date for this hard fork. In my opinion, this 2MB hard fork just delays the inevitable need for users to move up a layer in the stack to more scalable solutions such as lightning.
Bitcoin, at the blockchain level, scales TERRIBLY. I repeat, bitcoin, at the blockchain level scales TERRIBLY.
In the future, you will need to use layer 2 (L2) solutions to transact cheaply on the network. I think we should start setting that precedent now (while the network is still immature) instead of misleading people further that there is a future for cheap on chain microtransactions.