Patience is highly practicable in this strategy, holding from the bear market to the bull season would turned out profitable only when one chooses the good projects to invest in.
Patience is needed for holding as without it you'll sell early and so is luck, when this two work together you'll be receiving profits from any investment that you get into because they'll do better than others but this isn't guarantee only just assumptions.
I'm not sure if luck is involved because luck does not influence the value of the coin only your pure knowledge and how can you control your emotions. It really needs patience, which most of the newbies don't have; they tend to panic sell or be very greedy to sell. When we are talking about bitcoin, it is way safer than those other coins, as you've noticed that some of them won't last 2 years, but bitcoin stands still and the price keeps going up. What's best is to hold the coin that is most promising in the long run, or just hold bitcoin.