Bitcoin Price - all years
https://www.coindesk.com/price/Many people here have a wrong concept about long term investment, that it only mean to buy-and-hold - holding no matter what. The term investment itself implies a wise decision. The first cardinal principle of investment is:
Invest for profit.
I do not know how to comment on "investors" who do not care much about profit.
Short-term Trading:
There are indeed short and long term investment. Short term investment is speculation in very volatile markets - to make profits by buy-low and sell-high in a time span of a day or even just hours. The greater the volatility, the better it is for the such traders. But such short term trading is only for the very sharp traders - it is a zero sum game (with crypto, it should be done by bots - program trading). Short term traders do not take the risk of holding bitcoin balances; they only ride a rising market as in the past months. Thus short term trading may only be profitable in a rising market, never in a falling bear market.
Long-term Investment:Long term investment means to buy a commodity that holds value in the future. A proper investment implies knowing when to buy and when not to buy. Just because we "buy-and-hold" does not mean that, whenever we have some spare funds to invest, we immediately enter the market. Entering the market to buy with no timing consideration is no investment. We only invest to maximize profit and this may only be achieved when we have good timing. The second principle in investment:
Timing is important in successful investing.
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The need for timing applies even for long term investment.
Let's assume we agree that bitcoin is a good long term investment - it's value in the long term will always rise. But don't forget that nearly all commodities rise in the long term. Even prices of coal, corn and pork belly would rise in the long term because of the nature our fiat system. So, even buying bitcoin still is very dependent of timing if you "care" to make profits.
Many here think that, because bitcoin will surely have an increased value in the long term, any moment is a correct moment to buy.
It is not! What if the current price of $7000 is the peak and it crashed to a low of a $1000 in 2020. It recovers to $7000 in 2025.
You'll be in the red for 8 years! That's not good long term investment! Ok, it is only a "what if".
So for these so-called long term "buy-and-hold" bitcoin purists, the question now is :
Is this the time to buy?
Go to the link above and see the chart for the bitcoin price for all years. You must know how to zoom in at the frame around 2014 covering the rise and crash about Dec 2013 (Mt. Gox period). The market rose from $120 to $900 and crashed back to ±$230 about 2015. Only when you zoomed in will you see the similarity between that rally and this - they are similar (only visually evident when you zoomed in because of scale difference).
This current rally is the same as the one in 2013, the only difference is the scale:
The current rally is an exponential rise.
All financial markets that rise exponentially will crash - even for the best of investment medium. It is almost a law of nature, just like the law of large numbers and the return to the norm.
This Bitcoin price of $7000 is the peak and it must crash.
A third cardinal principle of investment:
Good timing requires patience and the ability to wait for the right moment.
So even for long term investors, this is not the time to buy.
Wait!