I sold all of my coins/tokens a few months back but I will be reinvesting in numerous difference projects again when, or if, BTC goes down to $14k - which I believe will be somewhere close to the bottom.
There are different strategies that you can use. You can DCA, you can also wait until the price you want is achieved, but bitcoin may never get to $14000. If you do kit DCA and bitcoin has not gotten to $14000 some weeks before halving, I will advice you to just invest.
Since losing the $35k I started trading using ByBit Derivatives and it's helped me to understand the whole crypto scene a lot more. I lost another $5k when I first started trading but since then I've done pretty well (mainly shorting) and I reckon I'm now around $2-3k up with the trading in total. I'm still massively down overall since getting into crypto though
Derivative trading is very risky, best to get specific coins like bitcoin for it. Some traders would trade shit coins and continue losing, know that altcoins are more volatile, if you increase the margin ratio, it won't be good.
You are now patient, just do not trade, best to just hold which is better. You can leave the coin after you buy it for until 2025.
Anyway, regarding long term investing and whether I should use Spot, Margin or Derivatives... My plan is to invest in loads of different coins/tokens but if we just use BTC as an example...
I will have to say this again, do not use derivative trading for altcoins, than to long it and not using more margin ratio, the best is to even buy them, move them to your noncustodial wallet.