Unless you have money to burn or a sixth sense, do not day-trade with Bitcoin. Investing for the long-term has proven to be far more profitable for most.
This is interesting and I think a lot of people around these forums agree with you. The thing to remember though is that buy and hold is a great strategy until it's not. I don't think it's wise to assume that previous growth in the price of bitcoin is going to continue forever. Unfortunately, new investors in almost every new raging bull market make the same assumption. Now that said, I would think you're probably safe as of now because there's still quite a bit more upside left to the market (in my opinion).
I think about it like this... who lost money in the 2009 stock market crash? Or the .com bubble? Or the 1929 Black Friday crash? Lost significant long term, life changing money in the form of unrealized gains that turn into huge losses?
It's always buy and hold investors that take the brunt of those losses. Swing/day traders might actually make huge profits on those same days. So sometimes the safe strategy isn't so safe when the market conditions suddenly switch on you. Short term investors have the ability to adjust to rapidly changing conditions where investors following the buy and hold strategy will be much slower to respond.
You're on the right track here with your words but there's something you're not making clear enough. This is not about two types of "trading"; this is about "trading" and "investing".
Let's say "trading" means aiming to make money from daily/weekly trends. "Investing" means looking at the fundamentals and judging whether there is more growth to happen over the long-term. Actually when it really comes down to fundamentals such as the balance sheet, the technology, the potential untapped markets, etc. against the tools used for trading such as Fibonacci retracement, triangles, etc., "investing" and "trading" (as described above) are two very different things, and generally-speaking they are seen as such across the markets today.
For any newb coming here trading is dangerous. For quite a few it is the first time they have had access to exchanges, charts, etc. With the benefit of hindsight they think it's easy to predict things and double your money in days. They also get swayed by the madness in here. And they get burned straight away!
Overall the fundamentals of Bitcoin look very good right now. If it wasn't for these, notably for example (after looking at the technology itself) the huge potential for adoption (the market is no-where near saturation), then far fewer people, myself included, would be advising investing.
For many of those coming here it provides a rare opportunity to be able freely to invest in the equivalent of a promising tech start up, something they would not be able to do elsewhere.
For experienced traders who are looking at it from a daily perspective, Bitcoin is simply another set of charts and data - another challenge to decipher. But would a pure trader be winning over a hodler at this early stage? I think for the vast majority investing will still be the most profitable course of action, and certainly the wisest, for 2014.
