I advise you to try yourself in long-term investment. Many of my friends lost money because of little-known alts and attempts to trade every day.It's very difficult in real 
Nevertheless if you're going to long-term holding you may lose your investments same way as short-term traders does but short-term traders are loosing the money quickly so they can correct or compensate their loss and you would be holding some coins for years and got nothing at the end.