Two communities with different visions should evolve independently.
With all the chaos and propagandist rhetoric surrounding Bitcoin right now, I want to outline why a chain split in Bitcoin is not the end of the world. In fact, I personally think a chain split is the most reasonable solution moving forward. The Bitcoin community is fractured between two incompatible ideologies. There will be volatility; a huge rally in the majority fork to a new outrageous ATH or both chains could suffer with the sum of their value no longer worth what Bitcoin is today. Even given the second (possibly less exciting) scenario, in the short term term this value may or may not be recovered but in the long term the communities will be better served and with that much more value potential exists.
Those who follow the Core developers scaling roadmap and reddit propaganda want to see SegWit now. There also exists a group who will oppose SegWit at all costs; SegWit fundamentally changes the incentive structures that comprise Bitcoin - a point well understood from several angles by Bitcoin developers from every fraction, including Core (see Is SegWit Bitcoin? Whose side should I be on? for more information). These are entirely incompatible desires.
It will be much better to have a chain split than a one size fits all solution (like SegWit2x was supposed to be). Like I have discussed before in my cornerstone post Hardfork: the tale of the full node referendum, hardforks (chain splits more specifically) are one of the wonderful beauties of decentralized consensus and blockchains. They allow fractioned communities to diverge while providing safe and explicit user choice.
So Bitcoin Cash?
So irregardless of how you feel about hardforks and chain splits, as it stands today:
There will be a chain split, it will be economically viable, and it will be mined even if it is a minority chain.
Bitmain, ViaBTC, and BTC.TOP have all stated that they will be mining the hardfork chain. This follows part of the Bitmain UAHF contingency plan.
When they do, a chain split will occur. If you had bitcoins before, you now have some on both chains. You are free to double down when/if you choose.
Big, non-SegWit blocks have miner support. Despite the 95% signaling for SegWit2x, there is still more than 40% signaling for Bitcoin Unlimited and emergent consensus. Also, just because 95% are "signaling" for SegWit2x, does not mean they all have to enforce it. In fact, the miners are incentivized to signal for SegWit2x no matter what they will do come August 1st. Their blocks will be orphaned if they don't fake it so of course all of the miners will signal. The miners are economically incentivized to lie.
A sincere promise.
I personally have serious doubts that the SegWit2x chain ("signaled" by 95% of miners) will go through with the 2x part of the agreement. There are well funded organizations whose livelihood relies 7on small blocks and SegWit. Their will be lots of arguments after SegWit 'locks in' on August 1st.
SegWit2x is only a promise.
I want Bitcoin Cash because I have serious concerns about how SegWit changes Bitcoin. Lightning Network is working on Bitcoin main-net today. There are other ways to fix transaction malleability.
Stay decentralized,
Kyle
Check out my recent post about self-votes on steem here:
Subjective Proof of Work: some rational comments on the self-voting trend
As always, insightful comments are often rewarded.