Bitcoin economy is expanding every year along other alternative currencies, which means on one side benefit to asset holders as they see value increase, increase of potential in where BTC can be spent, increases of new startups and investment oportunities.....and on other hand whole cattle of negative consequences such as: increased transaction fees, increased stucked transactions, waiting lines everywhere, etc...
Its double edged sword, especially due to technology being young, and market growing at exponential rates, which is why its no surprise that sooner than latter some major updates are about to spring up.
One of large advantages that crypto currencies have, and generally the blockchain applications is the speed of transactions, remving this advantage pushes cryptos strongly backwards, it by no means pushes them behind fiat currencies, but it does slow down adoption from larger players. Lately Bitcoin transaction times have been hitting pretty strong waiting lines, especially if users are not very competitive with fees on transactions, fighting for the miners to look into their own block.
It is planned at the moment for August 1st that there could be potential soft fork and implementation of SegWit and increased transaction speeds which would adress that problem.
Cases and points for SegWit implementation or soft fork and case against it
Transaction fees and waiting lines
If Bitcoin continues to rise in adoption as it is in past few months and having no change in its tech structure, this will begin race to the top on transaction fees possibly. Its actually oposite effect that happens when sellers are severely undercutting the prices to sell product against competition eventually driving prices to bottom, in BTC market its oposite as users with quick transaction times want to pay the most thus driving the fees higher. Obviously that is by no means single only effect that contributes to increased fees but it does help a bunch.
This has to be solved by giving breathing room to environment by increasing transaction speed by miles without doing any changes to current fee structure, once transaction speed changes, fees will follow to the downside.
Just to note, transaction fees are not conspirancy theory that miners are pushing somehow to ensure it keeps growing.
In long term high transaction fees are actually not very productive for miners if transactions are stuck in massive long lines. there is a point where it all starts to impact miners negative. Which means that there is balance in which miners would look forward to BTC fees to reduce just like the users.
If you are looking to decrease and stabilize the growth of transaction fees and increase transaction speed you might be looking for updates into Bitcoin possibly coming in August 1st.
Uncertainty, status quo no more
Splitting Bitcoin community into two pieces if there is soft fork could be somehow counter productive, on one side for market cap and stability of future growth, and splitting the miners and users into two chains which would slow down development and progress.
Which side would you side on if there is split of BTC into two currencies?
Just like Ethereum splited into two chains, it might happen to to Bitcoin too.
Might sound like difficult question but it totally depends what ones forecast is into future. From my view, if BTC wants to be further adopted, SegWit has to be implemented otherwise the transaction times would simply to beyond means of being useful. From this point if there is split, i am staying with new upgraded BTC, leaving the classic one behind.
Price movement of BTC
What would be a guess on price movement of BTC ahead of August and after it? In my view fear of fork can easily create selloff in BTC price ahead of August, mind that this situation is not comparable in terms of reaction to ETH or LTC because in first case ETH/ETC split was actually quite shockingly fast done and announced, while LTC itself didnt split it only gained upgrade.
In case of BTC i believe its possible to see selloff ahead of August, and after August (September and onwards) my bet would be on strong climb of price of new forked BTC.