Why Holding Bitcoin Beats Trading It for Most PeopleI don’t want to be offensive, but I can speak from experience.
Most people would make more money simply by holding Bitcoin than by trying to leverage trade it.
The data is clear. More than 95% of people lose money in crypto, mainly because of leverage and greed. I do trade Bitcoin as well, with a portion of my capital, and I’m doing fine. In 2025, I had 20 Bitcoin trades with a quite good win ratio:
Trading can work, but only for a small minority, and usually after years of experience.
🧪 Let’s compare it with my HODL portfolio (the bigger part).
I bought Bitcoin back in 2018. Here: The price today is more than 30× above my initial entry. That alone has produced far more gains than active trading over the same period.
🧪 Let’s put this into perspective.
To achieve a 30× return through trading over six years, you would need to generate more than 76% per year, every year. In simple terms, that means turning $10,000 into $300,000 purely through trading. That level of performance would require exceptional skill, discipline, and time, while increasing position size after every trade to compound and avoiding major mistakes.
🧪 And here is the problem — avoiding major mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes in trading or in predicting the price. I was wrong with my target for this cycle: and I was not alone. In this post from Excavo, we can see how big players and institutions were wrong as well and completely missed the predictions No one can predict the market with 100% accuracy.
⁉️ So why people think they can outsmart the market on lower timeframes?
Because they chase quick gains in altcoins or believe they can make money in the market with leverage. Most can’t. Most lose.
📌 Let’s compare it:
1️⃣ Being wrong as a trader — stress, time wasted on screens, and you are losing money.
2️⃣ Being wrong as a long-term holder — no stress, you have more time to accumulate more BTC into your cold wallet and do almost nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, being a hodler is also not easy. I faced a drop from 69K to 15K. If you don’t understand Bitcoin and don’t have conviction, the FUD news, which often appears near the lows, can destroy you and force you to sell.
If you don’t know much about BTC, I suggest you study it. I’ll give you just three points here, but there is much more.
✅Central banks will not stop printing money; your purchasing power will continuously go down.
✅Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million coins.
Not approximately. Not subject to change. Exactly 21 million.
✅By 2030, 99% of all Bitcoins will be mined. The rest will be mined over the next 100 years.
So what to do?
Of course, we are traders — we are going to trade. But I suggest you separate capital for trading and trade only with that. Never trade your long-term investment.
If you don’t have any physical BTC in your cold wallet, your ultimate goal should be to get to 1 Bitcoin and hold it long term, untouched.
🛡️ Here is how to behave.
On the chart below, I have spotted that BTC is flipping bearish and we could potentially go to 70K, and if a strong bear market hits, I believe it could dip below 50K:
1️⃣ As a trader - I flipped my bias to the bearish side and took a few shorts recently on a crypto exchange.
2️⃣ As an investor - I do nothing. I will be DCAing and building my long-term position. Remember, by 2030, 99% of BTC will be mined. M2 money supply will expand. Block rewards will be halved. The price will most likely be much higher.
I promised myself I’d become the person I once needed the most as a beginner. Below are links to a powerful lessons I shared on Tradingview. Hope it can help you avoid years of trial and error I went thru.
📊 Sharpen your trading Strategy
⚙️ 100% Mechanical System - Complete Strategy
🔁 Daily Bias – Continuation
🔄 Daily Bias – Reversal
🧱 Key Level – Order Block
📉 How to Buy Lows and Sell Highs
🎯 Dealing Range – Enter on pullbacks
💧 Liquidity – Basics to understand
🕒 Timeframe Alignments
🚫 Market Narratives – Avoid traps
🐢 Turtle Soup Master – High reward method
🧘 How to stop overcomplicating trading
🕰️ Day Trading Cheat Code – Sessions
🇬🇧 London Session Trading
🔍 SMT Divergence – Secret Smart Money signal
📐 Standard Deviations – Predict future targets
🎣 Stop Hunt Trading
💧 Liquidity Sweep Mastery
🔪 Asia Session Setups
🧠 Level Up your Mindset
🛕 Monk Mode – Transition from 9–5 to full-time trading
⚠️ Trading Enemies – Habits that destroy success
🔄 Trader’s Routine – Build discipline daily
💪 Get Funded - $20 000 Monthly Plan
🧪 Winning Trading Plan
🛡️ Risk Management
🏦 Risk Management for Prop Trading
📏 Risk in % or Fixed Position Size
🔐 Risk Per Trade – Keep consistency
Adapt useful, Reject useless and add what is specifically yours.
David Perk
