Day trading seems a better choice for me. Holding is also fine but in my opinion, you bigger capital to hold than you need to trade.
Well, day trading can offer superior profits if you are a good trader but it can also offer terrible losses if you are not good at it, holding offers both earnings and losses too, but if you hold enough there is a point in which is almost impossible to get back to the original price that you bought and the best thing is that this can happen very fast, those that bought at 1000 dollars are in a good position because I do not think we are ever going to see bitcoin at that price.
Day trading really offers a whole lot of profit, when you are good at it and you just know what you are doing. It is even very easy to build from so little to more with day trading. However, just as you have said, for someone who may not understand how trading works, it might be very tasking and the possibility of losing fast is also there but with a good portfolio anyway, the chances of loosing that much reduces.