So I have been trying to wrap my head around which is a better option, day trading crypto or buying for long term keep.
While they both have their pros and cons, they both come with a form of risk and they are meant to generate profit.
The major difference between them is that day trading tend to make profit from small market volatility, while hodling make profit from the bigger change in crypto value.
Day trading involves more techniques, self discipline and rational decision making.
Which do you prefer and think is better
Well, when you are talking about trading, I advise you to remove the context of HODLing from it, that is for investment, and not for retail traders like us. You can hold your trading position for long-term purposes, but it is not as in investment that people are mistaking a mere monthly investment for HODLing, you should be advised about it.
As for your inquisition, let me say that day trading is all the trades you open and conclude daily, meaning you are not leaving your position till the next day. This is short-term trading where traders can analyse the market for a short duration purpose and either scalp or trade within minutes and hours, but it will not be more than 24 hours depending on the time the trade opened the trade. A lot of strategies can be used here but most traders use between 1m-4H chart for it mostly. But this doesn't stop some traders from using higher charts for clarity, but will still close the trade on that day. They can also open and close many trades within a day.
For long-term trading, the context is relative, it could be a matter of days, weeks, or months, it all depends, though they are all called long-term trading. You can also use 4H-1M for this analysis. Both (Long and short-term trading) are nevertheless good for earning, it only depends on you as a trader. Your time for trading, the pattern, convenience, emotion and many other considerations are important to choosing what kind of trader you will be. This is even as all need discipline, expertise and management, and not better than each other as you believed. It depends on you.