With such a fluctuation in the crypto market, will it be preferable to purchase bitcoin in 2018 with a long-term view of 2-4 years?
Yes that will be really great if you are in for the long haul, like 2-4 years. There's still the block halving in 2020 if I'm not mistaken. And that will be a good catalyst for the price to go increased in the next couple of years or so. And what's good is the price is still cheap at this point and you can buy at least 1
BTC put it in your hard wallet and then back up everything and totally forgot it and just comes back in 4 years and see how much money you profit.