Topic: Whats the point hodling, if you can't risk it all? (Read 497 times)

You'll be more comfortable in holding if you really intend to hold it for the long term, like 5 to 10 years and even more. The problem with some investors is they don't understand the difference between long-term and short-term investment, that's why they make bad decisions in managing their investment. As an investor, we have to be specific with our purpose, and we should know that when we invest, we risk what we can afford to lose only.

Let's say I bought bitcoin at $10,000 each and my target is $1,000,000,.. and when it pumped I was tempted to sell it at $100,000 as that's already a big profit, but my action was wrong because I didn't follow the plan or my goal, I use my emotion rather than my mind.

The thing is, people ought to understand that there is no certain way to get rich quick, many newcomers have the mindset that they are basically just coming into this network to just get rich and leave, it does not work that way and that's where a lot of people make mistakes. Holding is a great strategy, it does but mean there's an assurance it's going to make your rich, and holding is not for everyone or just any coin.

Long term investors prefer to hodl, and they hodl Bitcoin cause it's sustainable for the long term, and if you do your research into it's price movement you'll know it's impossible for the price of Bitcoin to remain just static, it is volatile, so it can move both ways, but based on history, if you hold for long, there's a high chance it'll move up and you'll make good return on investment. Short term investors only stay in the network for a short time, and they mostly go for altcoins just cause majority of them are pump and dump coins that can give great returns in a very short time, but mind you that it could also crash in a shorter time.

Hodl was a word referring to Bitcoin. It wasn't said in reference to Namecoin or Tron or whatever altcoin. So I wouldn't agree with you in saying that "hodling could be just as risky as any other technique to crypto trading or investment strategy." Of course, if you extend hodling to shitcoins, it is risky, very risky. But it's not because of hodling itself but because they're shitcoins. They won't last for long. So why hodl? But if you stick to Bitcoin, hodling is more or less guaranteed to give you profit.

In many cases, holding is the best option that to do trading if we wanted to keep safe of our funds. But people think it was risky, well, it all was risky in the first place, nothing guaranteed safe but at least we do something to help it. Hold, hodl, or whatever it is, we do this just because we are hoping that someday this could save us in terms of the financial crisis.
Do holding is an option but I encourage people to do just like we did. We can't neglect the risk but nothing will happen in our life if we always think and worry about it. We should have to face the reality, nothing is easy for now.

They know what they're doing and how good holding is for them. It's easier for them to hold than to trade and good for them if they've been holding since 2020.

Holding is really fine but you have the right to sell at any time based from your what you think is the correct time. You can with 5% gain but, majority of the holders we're all for more than that.

Everyone have his own understanding about hold or hodl, so the two words are the same meaning provided that this community of bitcointalk remain constant, when holding aoin its base on the target of the person who is holding the coin particularly, I'm not disputing the fact majority objectives to hold a coin is not because of increment, but holding a coin that has potential is at advantages to the owner.

Yes, you are right we have different perspectives and strategies to earn some profit some of them are traders cause they feel that when they will get a chance to win the trade and then they get more profit. But on the other side, some people preferred to hold their BTC for a long period of time, and when the time has come the price will go up higher and then they sell.
But hold 1 word but it's not easy to do, you need to control, discipline yourself to become a successful holder.

And have it been found right this time? They choose not to engage more in crypto and do not even have the chance to listen FUDs, fake news, and etc. They are focused on the possible 100x and they believe that will come, so they hold without bothering touching it. That is certainly a wise choice since they never know how to trade but it was very fortunate that these people knows how to keep it safe and hold longer.

True holders will not just be afraid to take risks as they know what they are doing.

I know some people who's been hodling some BTC and ETH since 2020. These folks just bought BTC and Eth and held it since. They are not traders, they do not have a full understanding of how it works and do not really care. All they know and have heard is that it has to the potential to 100x times the amount they invested and that's all they care about and do not want to miss out. So hodling for some is their strategy and that's totally fine.

Holding doesn't mean that you have to do it forever. The reason why we trade and hold or whichever strategy that we're comfortable of is to make money.

As someone holds, there's really a need to have a price target for what you're holding. Well, for bitcoin it's been a good crypto hold and even you don't have a target, most of the holders of bitcoin are for the long term.

But it doesn't mean that you have to go along with them and won't have any price target of selling.

Hodl can only be as risky as anyother technique if it comes to altcoin and not just all altcoins but mostly altcoins without an economic, social, societal, entertainment or even political value. Now for altcoins holding isn't the best technique as different coins exist and all with their purpose of development so closer attention needs to be done to carefully select altcoins that are worth holding but for Bitcoin the best strategy that poses less risk management is to hodl hodl and keep holding

So not only save, but you have to keep up to date with what you hold. You have to see if they're still going according to plan. You have to analyze all aspects. You must still set and execute the strategies and plans that you make. That is very necessary, because actually with analysis you can minimize your mistakes, at least we avoid greater losses. But I'm sure not all investors can do that, but I always try to be a disciplined investor and trader.

There's this particular saying in crypto ''Hodling coin can make you rich in crypto''. I keep asking myself how long will that be? You can hodl a specific coin for years, still, yet their price remaineth the same.
Our crypto investment is for us to earn profits, once you have seen the profits, withdraw.  It is not a must to keep hodling for years. An altcoin can skyrocket 100x value with months of invention

What is the point of holding if one can't risk it all? I'd probably send you almost 80 different coins I'm holding since 2016 that have turned dead or abandoned, I was so crazy with holding and this is where it landed me, with dead coins, not all coins are good for holding

Some crypto hodlers are just holding, no plans for the crypto they are holding, no target, so they just hodl their coins indefinitely with no idea of what to do. I particularly find it risky to hodl coins aimlessly. Apart from the obvious challenges to Hodling, holding for a long time may bore the user of crypto, lead to carelessness and he/she may just let his guard down safe guarding his crypto portfolio, and we all know how that will result. Hodling is good, but risky when it becomes without aim.

Of course, bitcoin is pioneer cryptocurrency and the most reliable in all cryptosphere. I can't help but hodl a considerable amount of it and still keep adding to my portfolio with every spare income or investment money I earn. Infact, the nature of bitcoin is a wonder of the world for a currency to be in itself an investment. Its something marvelous but again, given the fact that there are shitcoins out there and mixed with those shitcoins are some highly profitable coins too. You can't help but try and acquire a few,  isn't it?

But you just might have sold a sat or even gifted it out. Mark my words and it says, just might and if yes, you just might have sold all that you've have described in the quote right there. Mind you, the purpose of an investment is to make profit and you take profit when you can or is in agreement with yourself and purpose to have made profit. A lot of investors in Bitcoin have done this over the years and still are today. What makes a real difference is the fact that, you never sell all your portfolio. You take as necessary and then, you live it be.

I wouldn't have really put it that way but, I'll go with you on that, that the roulette-playing mentality could be the investment mentality too. Let's look at it this way, in a game of roulette, you either hit an empty cartridge or you get the lead. That states the risk of an investment which is, profit or lose. They are inevitable and with the fact that, bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency out there, some investors might want to try there hands on a few. Would you really subscribe to the idea of a sole cryptocurrency in bitcoin, really? A mean, it would be such a thing but, would you really want that, perhaps only paired with fiat's on exchanges and a couple of stable coins...
Not all atcoins are shitcoins and the altcoins market have still got some real value about them!

How if making Bitcoin a long-term holding and we are going to take profits in some price rates?
I know that most people will be a desire to take profits moreover when they have reached so high profits. Turning into USDT or stable coins and get another time again to buy in a certain period.
Everybody may have different strategies. Not all holders will always be holding, sometimes, the whales and holders will also take profits at certain rates.

But it may be different for the people who are saving money in Bitcoin as an investment maybe for more than 10 or more years later. Or willing to give the assets for heritages for their children several years later

I believe history as shown us that we can not put all our eggs in one basket because doing so means should this fail then all of our investment goes down the drain and so as a counter measure we have to spread the risk by not going all in into one asset as a risk management mechanism!

As a matter of fact, as much as we want to go all in into BTC we didn't really anticipate that bitcoin would grow to where it is today.

Investing is risky, what strategy you choose is not the factor, just a matter of circumstances. No option is better than the other as it's personal preference and the goals you have in mind. Maybe on the surface, long term holding seems to be the more safer option, but, there is still risk in it.

This is definitely well-putted. Like what I previously mentioned, every investor has their certain goal on their investments once it reaches a certain threshold of amount that they are willing to risk. The essence is, as long as the investor cashes out his/her investments that is above their initial deposit, then they have the freedom to cash them out depending on their liking or needs.

There is this misconception in HODLing that people should never cash out their investments until an ATH. While this advice may be practiced by most of the people, the truth still remains that a person can freely utilize their investments if they needed the money for something more essential than saving.

Actually no where is 100% safe.
To hodl had made many financial fortunes. But before you will hold on for your dear life, you have to be sure if what you are holding is worth it.
Does it have enough air in his cylinder to sustain the long journey. For the case of altcoins, I can't actually tell.
But for King Bitcoin, it is almost certain that it is the safest to hodl. No matter the crash, it will rise again.
You only loose when you are tired and quit the market, but for bitcoin, he will be with us for very long time and will continue to hit new ATH.

Well, some people think that holding makes them profitable in the end. Just like to say that we hold for 5 years and after that we sold them. We can be in huge profit if that day the market is in bullish but if turns to bearish, just a waste of time.

I admit that I hold some but it was just during the bearish season, I'm not in long-term holding as I sell them once we recover and see a profit on my end. Maybe I call myself impatient but I guess it was not as we just look for every opportunity comes and we don't waste much time waiting for nothing.

Maybe it more on a savings if the person who is hodling is hodling a coin that is pegged on fiat like USDT or something like that where if there is a price change it won't affect much. If that person is hodling bitcoin then it is still a risky decision to make like holding long term. Most of the situation if your hodling is always a risky since you know that crypto is risky so either hodling or trading both are risky if ever the price fluctuate. The decision will be based on the crypto you are holding if it's for long term or short term.

Even if hodling is obviously a good and long term profitable strategy, mind you that not all coins are meant to be held for the long period, there are short term coins, and that can be said of most/if not all altcoins, thus when you buy such coins you're not expected or meant to hold them for the long term, you should always take profits when you get them and that's because such coins are pump and dump projects and more often than not, if you miss your ROI, you'll prolly not get it again.

Having said that, if you're taking the risk of hodling Bitcoin for the long term, then you're taking a worthy and a wise risk as it's a project that's sustainable for the long term, it's gradually edging towards mass adoption, and if you take a close look at its price history, you'll understand that it doesn't really matter how many correction periods there are in the network, it'll always rise back up again and continue to grow.

The point is to have more profits and less risk than with your mentality of playing roulette.

In my case I focus only on Bitcoin, which I am sure is going to be more profitable than 99% of shitcoins in the next few years if not 100%. But mainly I focus on Bitcoin because it is decentralized, limited in nature, decreasing in supply, censorship resistant, etc.

So, I'm not thinking about selling, I'm thinking about accumulating. Why on earth would I want to sell the best financial asset in the world? (Or the best currency that is also a financial asset, if you prefer).

Since the creation of Bitcoin, my mentality has proven to be much safer and more profitable than the roulette-playing mentality you have.

HODLing for indefinite period is not a good strategy. There are people who are still HODLing bitcoin to reach 100k hallmark, despite the fact they have bought bitcoin at 20k and 30k. Crypto day trading is not as easy as it look like, there are very few crypto traders in profit that buy in and out of price swings. Majority of such traders are in loss.

In my opinion, holding is also risky. Everything we do in the crypto world and also daily life will always require and involve any risks and we cannot avoid this. What we can do is by minimizing getting the risks.
As one of the ways of holding coins. I think that the idea of holding must be related to what coins to hold, whether the coins are pribably still promising for the future or not. If we are holding shitcoins, it means that the possibilities of losing the assets are very high. It is different if we are holding Bitcoin or ETH or BNB that may give more chances to survive in the future.
And once more, holding for me is around certain period, and I will take profits when my target is reached and them buying again in certain rate to hold in certain period again.

If investing in cryptocurrencies is for you an alternative to placing your funds in a real bank, then hodl in this case is the right decision. But in any case, it is necessary to choose the right coins for a long-term hold, since the ultimate goal of any hodl is to get a profit.

Holding crypto coin is directly proportional to risk taking, once someone can be able to take risk, meaning he/she will be able to hold crypto token until a desire setpoint or desire price is attained.
I am really impressed because today I learn the meaning of HODL, I always refer to holding unknownly but I now know the exact meaning. This forum is indeed a great institution to learn and share ideas.

It depends on the trader how they will risk their assets. Theres a lot of factors, one of these is because they are confident that this particular coin will rise up and get a good profit and some of them cannot make a pull out due to having too many losses and they are hoping that their money has a chance to come back again and lastly is they want to hold because they don't need that money its all about the risk investment if you got hold great if the price goes up, once you bought and deposit a coin you are already willing to risk.

If we are into crypto market and have portfolio of different coins we already have the risk taking capabilities because of its volatile nature and i would say all the investment have some degree of risk associated with them until you have invested in some capital guaranteed plan which is more or less given to people who doesn't want any risk at all.So why should we afraid of it in the end?

But as you said risky crypto market there is difference in that which i will explain.Suppose you are holding bitcoin then you have risk that whether it will go up or down but if you consider long term then it's relived or risk is reduced as the amount will grow substantially but if you are holding some useless fake tokens or shitcoins then there is stupidity along with the risk which can be avoided but majority goes with the market flow which is sometimes a trap and you later on feel this part but your funds are lost forever as the coin dumps and lies dead inside your wallets as we have seen many times.

So if you want to take risk avoid taking them over any crypto that will give you no return and will not be able to grow further but will dump.So this should be taken into final call before investing.

Absolutely correct. That's why hodling isn't for anyone who is in the habit of always checking charts and monitoring prices. Otherwise, it will mess one's plans up. Hodling is a patience-driven adventure. Without patience, no one can succeed at it.

That's right, but the issue of knowing when to exit and end the loss isn't a simple one. Every investor tends to consider the, "What if" situation. "What if the token takes a turn into profit immediately I sell?" And this is why you always get to see investors deep in loss before they call it quit. It's never an easy decision.

Yes exactly, there is no zero risk
Holding will have higher risks when we don't really know about the future of the assets that we are holding when we pick the wrong cryptos, when the cryptos are only based on hype projects and they promise us about very high price when holding. This will be very risky because we don't really know whether their promise of potential future will be exactly realized or not.
A long term hold for me is just for some certain coins, and Bitcoin is the most recommended asset to hold, followed by ETH and BNB only.
But, we must also consider in  what period or  era we buy the Bitcoin to HODL for a long term period. I personally will prefer to buy Bitcoin when in the bearish era to hold to the next bullish era at last even it is for 5 years.
But if this is still during in the bullish season, I will personally take it as a short holding, or short term investment.

Yeah and that's why, you could be able to risk it all at times if you haven't prepared a get put plan. I tell you, using Ethereum as an alt, there were others who did have it and quickly sold it off too because, theye weren't just sure of it, had no get put plan and was completely obsessed with bitcoin. Well, an obsession for bitcoin would often yield profit for one who has developed patience for a virtue on hodling but when it comes to alts, it's more of a different story.
I would hate to be one of those that would tell a sad story over some coin I supposedly bought and sold it off. If there wasn't an initial back put plan, I go all the way!

Honestly, I also don't see anything bad in cutting losses or taking profit due to the high manipulating scheme that always happens in the altcoin market but it, not all the altcoin that are dead projects because of no use case or utility. I have seen projects that are dead because of no system upgrade.

You are definitely correct. HODLing is by far the most convenient way of investing your BTCs for long-term investment. By basing one's decision purely on the price history of bitcoin, one can have this reassurance and hope that its price would skyrocket 3-4 years from now or from the next fork.

Personally, if I could have saved majority of my BTCs that I earned last 2017, I would have re-invested it and probably purchase more on the process. That is why, I adopt HODLing as my primary source of investment method rather than risking it through gambling, trading, etc.

Yeah, of course holding is just a temporary method to be able to buy the dip and wait for the pump but who would want to hold Bitcoin forever and reject all of the opportunity to make some profit? Investment need some strategy if you want to maximize your profit and holding is one of the best strategy when it comes to investment in Bitcoin since it has proven already that the price would eventually pump.

Buy at your own risk and invest what you can afford to lose. If you know some of the golden rules in crypto, you will have no problem with your investment.

I tend to disagree with this idea, it should be anytime you can buy Bitcoin either if it's at a peak price.  Because you will never know when the peak price will stop, the only thing that we can determine is that we've reached the previous ATH.  But yes., it could be better if you will buy at the dipped price but another problem is there's no exact time frame when it will happen.  So I suggest, anytime you can buy and hold it for a long period of time.

Holding at least for about 10 years is I rest assured that there will be your profit.  First thing first, if you believe in Bitcoin and invest in it, you should believe it too that Bitcoin will grow after for how many years. (it's already proven)

So now, OP was right, what is the point of holding if you can't risk and if you don't believe in Bitcoin.

That's the golden rule. If most people invested only what they could afford to lose, the price wouldn't be so volatile as hodling would be less risky. But we all know that this ideal and not a reality in many cases.

Hodling is risky, specially with most altcoins, but if you can set some limits and control your greediness it can be the best investment strategy for most of us (not financial advise).

Let's immediately dispel all the myths and say that any investment in cryptocurrencies is risky, but that so far investing in Bitcoin has proven to be quite safe, although the future is always in question. Yet investing in some altcoins has also proven to be very profitable over the long term, but these are rare exceptions that do not set any rules.


The key thing is to never invest the money we need, or worse, to borrow money to invest in cryptocurrencies. If someone is not under pressure to have to sell, then it is much easier to survive any major correction or long crypto winter. Another big problem is the purposefulness and legitimacy of projects in which someone invests, and only a few can separate the grain from impurities, which means that investing in all new crypto projects is extremely risky and in the long run mostly leads to loss of investment.

Many people who invest in cryptocurrency and especially the old timers rather choose to hodl instead of trading.
Hodling is definitely no so easy since we need to keep diamond hands and have good amount of patience to hodl our coins through the worst of times.
The reason why many people choose to hodl is because trading is not for all. Not everybody can make consistent profits from trading.
Hodling gives huge gains in the long term.

Holding entire your life isn't a wise idea especially for Bitcoin, you'll loss a lot if you buy on peak. I prefer to cut loss and buy every dip, so it will recover more faster than just holding until the price increase like the beginning you bought.

While on altcoins, I'd say it's true I was like that go big or go home but it's only 5-10% of my portfolio... I consider it as gambling lol. Some project going to the moon, but many of them were become shitcoins.

From my perception, it's quite understood that without hodling any coin for long time frame and without taking risk measure in cryptocurrency they will be no chance of adventuring into huge profit in cryptocurrency industry, in actual sense it seems that anyone who is hodling coin have already into the risk measure.

Because of many things. Here I only mention a few

• Bitcoin has biggest hashrate on its network. It means it is a strongest crypto network and a safest one so far.
• It has biggest communities
• It has biggest adoption, biggest trading volume
• It has best developers

Those components combine with each other and make Bitcoin has best survival in crypto.

This. HODL is to get profit not hold to get loss. Many altcoin hodlers think they are hodling but they are not. Because those coins they invested and are hodling won't be able to survive in bear market or more than 4 year. They end with no ability to get initial capital back.

IMO hodling is a strategy that doesn't mean holding the coin forever in your wallet. Of course it mean buying and then waiting for the pump. How much pump you want is entirely upto you. There are people who bought bitcoin at 10k and waiting for 100k they are still hodling. ROI is upon you.

It's easy to say to sell on ATH and buy on ATL but it's very hard to determine when ATH & ATL will occur or if the current price is that.

Smart traders usually ride the waves when there's a volume but investors are holding no matter what's the price until the project that they are investing are already showing the fruit of there labor and generating profit. Many user didn't know the difference of trading and investing that's why they are always being confused when there's a sudden price movement.

Selling at ATH is the best thing that a holder should do in order to gain when you have plans to buy back at a lower price. But if you don't plan to sell, just hold and forget it for maybe more than years. It's going to waste your time if you aim for a very high price, waste years of waiting so it's better to trade if you are not willing to hold for years.

Don't rely on bullrun for money because this will also disappoint you if the altcoins you hold don't moon. The reason why they tend to be BTC maximalists is that they know it's BTC that only will go up faster.

As for bitcoin, I haven't actually bought it for a long time, but I transfer what I get from the signature campaigns to the ledger and hodling it. 
When btc reaches my desired price, I will sell it.
That's my strategy and I'm not saying it's risk-free, but at least I'm not risking my own money here, so I don't care too much, whatever happens.
I risk a lot more with some other crypto and non-crypto projects and investments, but for each investment I have a clear goal and exit strategy.
Hodling is my plan only at btc but not in other projects where I invest my own money.

Being smart is more good than being an agressor, I will look to save my asset value if I am not seeing the progress in it. But before all these things we have to only invest what we beleive that it has potential to show progress in the future so we trust it and take the risk, either it may goes to 100 or zero when it comes to HODL altcoins. Well, I might follow a strategy if the price fell 50% I will not take the risk anymore better I will go with the proven coin which js Bitcoin and make a bet on it for long term.

All the assets have risk associated with them but why people panic when btc dips is out of my mind completely.You need to take riks and if we see bitcoin as an asset for long term then there are very risk percentage with it and i don't know a single person who has hold btc from past 4-5 years complaining about profits or have you? You just needs to be patient for some time and rest wait for profits to come to your way.I also started a similar thread that why bitcoin is safe investment for me rather than risky one few days back :

Reasons why I prefer Bitcoin over any other assets and dips don't panic me....

Exactly if the coins are not getting high which is usually what these shitcoins don't do they need to sell their coins but they do opposite of the same and just keep holding that shitcoins and come under the influence of others and beleive that bitcoin is not safe which is their worse decision.But the problem is many claims it's expensive and invest the same amount in those fake coins assuming it will give them returns or make them millionaire within few days of holding and what happens is opposite and their funds are also gone.Altcoins are not best but btc is few understand it.The fast you understand better it is.

Regarding cutting losses, that's another important thing that many people don't do. I did that in mid 2018, I sold all my altcoins with significant loss, and bought BTC. It wasn't easy to sell with 50% loss, but if I haven't done done that and went with "all or nothing" tactic, I would end up with 90-95% loss.  Don't marry yourself to a coin, just sell that shitcoin if you see that there is no progress and instead buy BTC.

OP while your mancho strategy may work for you. I think its best to cut bad losses before they get worse. One of the mistakes investors make is comparing bitcoins to altcoins. Altcoins are less reliable than bitcoins. Some projects are dead projects with no use cases, no utility. These coins are no good to hodl for the long term if you do you will be shooting yourself in the leg.

That's pretty bad investment tactic, to sell all only after it reaches some specific price as that's how newbies usually get rekt, waiting for price that coin/token never reaches. Instead, you should scale your sell orders, and same thing goes when you are buying.

I rarely invest in altcoins, but when I do my first goal is to get back initial investment and go back into BTC, and then I sell percentage of what's left each time it reaches specific price. I learned my lesson back in 2017/2018 when I used your tactic, and in the end I ended up with almost nothing as we now how altcoins ended and similar thing will happen again once bear market reaches.

There's a reason why bitcoin still is the most recommended cryptocurrency to 'hodl', simply because it has one of the best risk/reward assets today. 99% of cryptocurrencies are simply not for long-term 'hodling' for obvious reasons.

Also, 'hodl' never meant that if you're 'hodling' you end up with totally zero risk. 'Hodling' is simply just a better strategy for the large majority, compared to buying in and out of price swings and end up with a lot less coins that they've started with.

At first for me, many ranked up users and I'm sure a lot more beginners at the moment have come to know the term 'hodl' which is a connotation hold and infact was a misspelling of that same word. HODL has infact evolve to mean Hold On for Dear Life. Its a term that reminds crypto investors in times of market crashes that the crash would or could only be for a short while and for investors not to sell off their crypto asset hence, the best is yet to come.

Having this in mind, a lot of crypto investors are very confused on when to sell or get the returns off their crypto asset or investment. Though hodling might seem like a risk free move that indeed tests your patience and rewards it, it could be also one that comes with a major risk especially when you invest on altcoins. This is what brings me unto the topic of this thread.

Hodling could be just as risky as any other technique to crypto trading or investment strategy.

With many not knowing when to sell or actually quite on a declining project, hodling pose a different kind of threat towards investors. A threat that pushes you to either have the mind of a fortune teller on that project or be ready to bear the risk of a complete liquidation of that asset. Earlier on this year, I invested some $400 in a few coins I hope not to mention. One at $6 after a supposed fall from an ATH of $11 and is currently at $1.14, with another at $2 which pumped upto $8 and is currently at $1.2 with the coinmarketcap.com price index. Good enough, I've been watching this coin through the series of price decline and still choose to let it be. You can win, you can still win but then, it always comes with some risk factor which isn't limited to a complete liquidation of your asset. Perhaps this might not be the case for the pioneer coin like bitcoin but it still carries some attributes of such risk when linked with how patient and willing you are to hodl.

There is always going to be a risk to reward ratio and its always subject to you the investor. Mine is simple 'I have a target to an investment and its either I archive it or I'm ready to loose it all'. This aggress with the singular investment principle that states, 'invest only what you can afford to loose'.

Hodling is no simple task, you out to be ready and know that it's a test of patience and it plays with your mind. Though, its of great importance that you invest on projects you've researched and satisfied to be good for you. Build your comfort about that point and be ready for whatever it throws at you!

Disclaimer: This is no investment advice, just an insight to what I've experienced and feel about this term 'hodl'.