Is Bitcoin a Good Investment? Does Hodl Work?

[davinchi]

--snip

I don't know how you calculated a 50% lost because in 2015 the price was around 450 dollars, you can check everywhere you want and you will see that in 2015 December the price was around 450 dollars, specially the dates I checked, and in 2016 the price wasn't 250 dollars? Price hit around 800-900 dollar levels in 2016 late December as well?

I don't know where you are getting your numbers from but that is the real truth, in late December of 2014-2015-2016-2018 all made profits, just 2017 made a loss because that was literally the peak.

If you hold bitcoin long enough you ALWAYS make a profit, except that faithful horrible peak that was both a bliss and a curse because we had a chance to sell at $20k but that meant some people bought at $20k and lost money. I didn't even cherry picked the prices or points, I literally checked 1 year ago exact date, 2 years ago 3 years ago etc etc, what should I have done, picked the peaks of each year?

[Yamifoud]

Hold? Depending on the situation cause, not all the time we must do to, it sometimes we need to sell and buy back again. That is how I work with my funds in crypto. Cause holding won't give us the assurance that we are able to gain more profit in a year or more. If we think of taking advantage of every fluctuation that the market has, I have to see that I'm in more gaining rather than of keeping its holding.

Anyway, that's our choice, besides, we have a different play in crypto and may holding for many years isn't my practice.

[Questat]

Hold? Depending on the situation cause, not all the time we must do to, it sometimes we need to sell and buy back again. That is how I work with my funds in crypto. Cause holding won't give us the assurance that we are able to gain more profit in a year or more. If we think of taking advantage of every fluctuation that the market has, I have to see that I'm in more gaining rather than of keeping its holding.

Anyway, that's our choice, besides, we have a different play in crypto and may holding for many years isn't my practice.

With the proper timing, you can do that, holding is bad if you are just holding blindly, and also, if you are willing to hold for the long term, funds that you use for investment should be manage properly. Have a portion for long term and have a certain portion for short term too, so as an investor, you'll continue to make money and take advantage on the market volatility.

[dunfida]

Hold? Depending on the situation cause, not all the time we must do to, it sometimes we need to sell and buy back again. That is how I work with my funds in crypto. Cause holding won't give us the assurance that we are able to gain more profit in a year or more. If we think of taking advantage of every fluctuation that the market has, I have to see that I'm in more gaining rather than of keeping its holding.

Anyway, that's our choice, besides, we have a different play in crypto and may holding for many years isn't my practice.

With the proper timing, you can do that, holding is bad if you are just holding blindly, and also, if you are willing to hold for the long term, funds that you use for investment should be manage properly. Have a portion for long term and have a certain portion for short term too, so as an investor, you'll continue to make money and take advantage on the market volatility.

Im indeed doing both sides when it comes to short and longer ones.Im saving up BTC for longer term and i do have or spend some of it for shorter/day trades to accumulate more
and dealing with some few top alts in the market and when i do profit out i do convert it to BTC and the cycle continues.When it comes to profitability rate then theres nothing
who can beat out on active trading.As said Hodl wont guarantee on making you profits in a years time unlike on active ones but well we know the risk compared among the two
is different of course.The more time you deal actively then the more risky it is but if you can handle it out then its better to try.

[STT]

Nobody ever HODLED long term & lost money though

We really are setting ourselves a low bar if the price is dollars and BTC continues onwards then by design Dollar will on purpose lose value continually.   By that measure price should be going up but value wise its not an answer to the question of investment.
   If you want my very basic take, investment is involvement its not passive and its not a simple hold of a commodity.   Speculation is not investment, two different things but in this crazy world its possible nobody is left that notices or cares for any difference in between the two.

Make sure to hold enough dollars or whatever your locally flawed Papier-mâché currency might be so you can pay your taxes and next years bills.   Don't over speculate, that'll put you off balance and into the mud.   I've advised people to buy gold at times, problem is they buy and then sell in the same year.  2019 that might have worked but most years it wont and kinda similar for BTC, in this context yes its better to hold.  Ideally we want to circulate BTC from one holder to another even when using some value, that is happening to some extent the greater the population of BTC becomes.
  If BTC population increases, the price really doesn't matter as much and it only matters if you are requiring to go back to FIAT but most of us are horribly over exposed to failing FIAT via wages vs inflation to pension obligations.  Just don't over balance either way is the small print to any speculation [investment is involvement in a business using BTC ].

[jhonjhon]

Yes, HODL does work.

When talking about my strategy of HODL, for me, I don't judge it on a regular and short term basis, I just have to set a good target and wait until that target will be achieve. For me, HODL means I'll be able to hold for a long term if the right timing has not come yet.

For example, I bought at peak in 2017, that means I am still holding until now, and I will never get panic despite of what would happen to the market.

That's right, bitcoin is a very good investment most especially for long term investments not more of a short term investment because the price moves so much almost every minute or every and that investing short term can be stressful and disappointing. I myself is hodling my coins an little by little got profits from it, I don't do day trading much because I have lost quite an amount already and it seems day trading isn't for me.

[luckyflop]

Investing in bitcoin must be in the right time, if we invest in the right time, then we will gain profits. I had a few friends who invested in bitcoin at the end of 2017, at which time the price of bitcoin was higher than $ 17k and they still hold until now, obviously 2 years is a long time but they are still losing money. If we want to make a profit in this market, we must have experience and seize the opportunity, long-term or short-term does not matter.

[Yamifoud]

Hold? Depending on the situation cause, not all the time we must do to, it sometimes we need to sell and buy back again. That is how I work with my funds in crypto. Cause holding won't give us the assurance that we are able to gain more profit in a year or more. If we think of taking advantage of every fluctuation that the market has, I have to see that I'm in more gaining rather than of keeping its holding.

Anyway, that's our choice, besides, we have a different play in crypto and may holding for many years isn't my practice.

With the proper timing, you can do that, holding is bad if you are just holding blindly, and also, if you are willing to hold for the long term, funds that you use for investment should be manage properly. Have a portion for long term and have a certain portion for short term too, so as an investor, you'll continue to make money and take advantage on the market volatility.

Proper timing is just like having luck. The market remains volatile that is why I'd take such an advantageous opportunity to buy and sell and rather than to hold and wait. I understand the risk that I've been doing and too much care but gladly I carried it out. Ain't no wonder that some will keep holding for the sake that they won't suffer losses. I accept I do not really have patient and easily get bored of waiting that is why I'd never try to hold bitcoin for a year or more.

[moviebuff777]

Holding works because there is a limited number that will ever be created.

A second factor is that we are just in the early stages of adoption. As Bitcoin goes more mainstream, the value should increase even further.

[cutesgirl]

Looking at how "bad" the past 2 years have been for bitcoin, and out of curiosity and because many people don't know if Hodling does or doesn't actually work, I have decided to make an excel sheet and see if Hodling does work for the course of long period of time.

In this study, I imagine average Joe who joined the bitcoin market right at the peak (17/12/2017) and bought his first BTC for $20,089.00, average Joe bought the same amount of bitcoin every month from that time to (17/12/2019) or a total period of 2 years.


Buying Monthly at

Open = $7,621.34
High =  $9,317.24
Low  = $6,297.66
Close= $7,510.18


Average = $7,686.61



Buying Weekly at

Open = $$7,708.47
High =  $8,268.48
Low  = $6,991.72
Close= $7,595.04


Average= $7,640.93



Buying Daily at

Open = $7,669.29
High = $7,855.83
Low  = $7,439.93
Close= $7,652.44

Average= $7,654.37


Taking the monthly statistics, assuming that Joe started after the peak by

1 month  : $7,452.68
2 months :$7,227.29
3 months :$7,121.50
4 months :$7,039.00
5 months :$6,987.10
6 months :$6,913.94


Taking the monthly statistics, assuming that Joe started before the peak by

1 month  : $7,714.05
2 months :$7,630.02
3 months :$7,513.14
4 months :$7,387.53
5 months :$7,230.89
6 months :$7,082.91


Bitcoin now sits at about 7300$, which means on the average, Joe now is close to break-even point.

with a bit of luck Joe could have sold on July 2019 (5 months ago), at the point his average cost would have been $7,465.47 while the average selling price of that month would have been $10,350.89 and would have made + 38% profit on his investment.

With a bit of bad luck Joe could have sold on Feb 2019, the average cost would been $7,766.56 and sold for $3,729.25 making a loss of - 51.9%.


There is no right answer for this, it pretty much depends on what Joe was going to do with that money if not invest it in bitcoin in the first place. Timing is also crucial, by ignoring the two last scenarios that are based on pure luck, Hodling seems to perform well IMO, if joining around the peak keeps you close break-even, joining at the right time or just far enough from the peak- will most likely put you in profit over a long enough period of time.





Price history data I used can be found on Finance.Yahoo

Bitcoin is good investment but holding is not better choose because many bad thing will happen with bitcoin at the future, maybe if you have much money you can use daily trade or investment with bitcoin in short term, you have get chance how you can get profit every day without hold your bitcoin for long term where your money have hold in bitcoin assets.

[suvo05]

Bitcoin is good investment but holding is not better choose because many bad thing will happen with bitcoin at the future, maybe if you have much money you can use daily trade or investment with bitcoin in short term, you have get chance how you can get profit every day without hold your bitcoin for long term where your money have hold in bitcoin assets.

Just look at the past history you will find everyone got their profit by holding bitcoin for a longer period of time. Daily trading is a risky task needed lots of skills. when you are investing then you should not worried that bad things will happen to your investment in the future. That will lead you to rhe wrong direction, better be confident and then invest. And in case of BTC, it has proved itself to be strong enough so many time that we can rely on it.

[2double0]

It's the beginning that matters here and after that, all's well that ends well.

Timing, as you stated, holds a critical position herein or take any stocks/shares/forex/commodities you have invested in. If you know when you should enter "the right time I am talking about", then you should decide the deadline of your position - short, long or mid. After that, set a target based on your deadline and get your capital safe once reached there. If your target is small, short and mid terms are okay, but if you buy btc today at $7200 and think that it will go $10k tomorrow? Please leave trading immediately, it's bad for your health, or go the other way - long term investment. Here, putting money which you will use lastly when all your funds are over - is the best choice. In simple words, invest what you can afford to lose.

[shield132]

Hodling works but the problem is that money has to be in circulation, I have no idea why do I have to repeat that proposal over and over again.
Also I have no idea why there is still question whether bitcoin is a good investment option or not, just see statistics, this coin is 10 years old and you can see every minute of it's price movement during this 10 years.
Personally I would say, bitcoin is great investment option but don't rely on my proposal, check statistics yourself, maybe I analyzed everything wrongly?

[mikeywith]

I don't know how you calculated a 50% lost because in 2015 the price was around 450 dollars

Sorry, what was supposed to be 2013 and not 2015 , price in Dec 2013 was a bit over 1000$ and then a year later on Dec 2014 it was less than 500$, therefore, it was more than a 50% loss , my mouse cursor is not loyal  .

I didn't even cherry picked the prices or points

You did, you start with December and end with it !!!! if you don't do that, you can get the following

June 2014 (600$)    To June 2015 (300$)  > -50% loss
Jan  2018 (17,000)  To Jan 2019  (3500$) > -75% loss


Just because buying on Dec was profitable, it does not mean you can use that as a proof to show that hodling for one year worked well for 2014-2015-2016-2018.

what should I have done, picked the peaks of each year?

Yup, this is usually the fair way to go about this, when you want to prove that something really works, you need to perform the study based on the worst case and not the best case, Buying in Dec of every year as you mentioned is just 1 out of 12, which can't happen all the time, there is a good chance that anyone would have bough the peak of 2014 as well as 2018, in fact more people buy the peaks than bottoms.

I am not saying the numbers you got are wrong, they are right, but they are selectively chosen  (not saying you have selectively chosen them on purpose), and they give the impression of (Buy bitcoin, Hodl for one year, and you will make profit) which is never the case because you could have bought at a worse time of the year and this is where most newbies buy at, so any HODL study should IMO be based on the worst possible scenarios, like how I did with my cost averaging starting at the peak of 2017, not because it was December, but because it was the peak.

[Ayiranorea]

Holding works, for the same you need to know how long we need to hold. Just buying and holding doesn't gonna get you with the best return. Very few will get luck to profit in the short without holding for a much longer time period. When it comes to holding we need to observe the market, and based on the changes happening we need to take decisions whether to continue holding or just cash it out for a buying at low prices.

[Questat]

Yes, HODL does work.

When talking about my strategy of HODL, for me, I don't judge it on a regular and short term basis, I just have to set a good target and wait until that target will be achieve. For me, HODL means I'll be able to hold for a long term if the right timing has not come yet.

For example, I bought at peak in 2017, that means I am still holding until now, and I will never get panic despite of what would happen to the market.

You must be firm. However, people aren't have the same approach as you. Or you may be wealthy from behind so that you ain't worrying what would be the market held from time to time. If people have the same attitude as you, I just see a healthy environment. More positivity, I supposed? Full of encouragement, and such things.

I would not say I am wealthy but I made good profit in 2017 from other coins.
I diversified some of my profits by buying the altcoins that I like and unfortunately they are dropping in value, some lost 90% of its price from ATH but like I said, I don't panic, if in case I will lose my investment on them, overall, I AM STILL PROFITABLE due to my other coins.

you lose some and you win some, but make sure you have more winnings that your loses, that's the rule in investing and in gambling .

[owengtam09]

There is always no good profits every month or every year, especially with bitcoin because we all know that bitcoin is really unstable and with that scenario, it depends on our decision whether we want to sell it already or wait for more months or years before selling because at this point it has a long time now that we are in dips and its getting dipper.

[CodyAlfaridzi]

Good analysis. This price point might be (or not) the bottom for the bear trend since July 2019. If it's true (and I hope it is) then we'll be looking for a bull trend leading up to halving which might fuel the next major rally. That means profit all the way up for people like Joe who's dollar-cost averaging since the peak (which is a massive peak). I think this is enough to say that holding and DCA could work wonderfully over a long time frame.

[DoublerHunter]

There is always no good profits every month or every year, especially with bitcoin because we all know that bitcoin is really unstable and with that scenario, it depends on our decision whether we want to sell it already or wait for more months or years before selling because at this point it has a long time now that we are in dips and its getting dipper.

^ Because you are looking at your crypto asset per week or just months. That is not as easy as that, because when we talked about long term investment it is usually taken down years, not just a month or weeks. I agree that bitcoin is good for investment and holding for a long term or let your bitcoin sleep for how many years in your wallet and of course, make it sure that you have invested that you can afford to lose not just a family budget.

[exstasie]

Each successive bull cycle has suggested that hodling works. It's a long term investment strategy so it shouldn't be judged over a matter of months. If/when the market makes a new ATH like 2013 and 2017, it'll be proven yet again as a solid investment strategy.