Late 2017 and early 2018 i was holding lots of coins and tokens from the ico's in that some i really trusted with solution and team (not only me most of crypto community trusted). Now this coins or token became nothing . But some projects i entered to sell for small margin profit these projects given profit . So holding token or coin for long term is meaningless.
Holding token or coin for long term is not meaningless but if you choose not legit project then it'll make you suffer for sure. I understand that before you invest on those project you definitely investigate. But i am pretty sure that you weren't alert more. The time you are talking about was haven for crypto currency. Almost every coin was doing pretty good but after that every coin dump pretty hard even btc. And it's true that 98% projects are useless right now which from late 2017 - early 2018. Other hand holding altcoin (most of them) is too much risky now days.
So if you wanna hold cryopto coin then choose btc. Because BTC is the only coin you can trust and this the only coin which pump more than other after 2018 incident.