They are watching https://coin.dance/blocks statistics, we are 1826 Blocks away from Segregated Witness activation. BIP 141 locked in.
Unstoppable in regard that we now got everything. A fork of sorts happened. Segwit happens. Bigger blocks are out there as a great field experiment. More blocksize adjustments pending, but might arrive too.
And nothing harmed bitcoin in any way (besides the troublesome discussions sometimes).
Next year 2018 my forecast would be: Only one part of the above made it onto the pole position. The other concepts had to stay second place. I dont dare to guess which one ends up first.
Indeed, segwit planned to be activated on August 21st and many people triggered to buy bitcoin, current price is over $3650 and OKCoiin has reached $3775. Increased in value while global markets such as US stock market has been sinking which may lead investors towards bitcoin. The majority of bitcoin trading volume seems occurs in Asia countries such as in Japan, South Korean, China and India. We're on bull run again, I guess. Another factor that maybe affect this rise is mainstream journalist from Bloomberg, the wall street journal, CNBC and New York times that have spread the positive news about bitcoin.