Yes, holding Bitcoin for the long-term can be a good investment strategy for those who believe in the long-term potential of the cryptocurrency. It is true that the price of Bitcoin can be volatile in the short-term, but over the long-term, Bitcoin has shown a tendency to increase in value.
If you zoom out the bitcoin chart from it was created until now, you will see that bitcoin will always increase over time. And if you're an investor with a lot of faith in bitcoin, short-term volatility presents a better opportunity than a time to panic. Because every time bitcoin drops in price is an opportunity for us to buy cheap bitcoin. And that's why I prefer bear markets to bull markets.
Yes, investing in bitcoin might not be guaranteed but the risks are actually minimized as bitcoin is already a decade long and has been proven throughout the years compared to the other coins that got more risks as most of them are centralized. Altcoins are also good investments but we need to be careful from choosing which altcoin should we include in our portfolio because there dozens of them which are just too good to be true.
I also echo you on your statement that bear market might be a headache to some but I view it as an opportunity to accumulate more coins as long as we can afford it because when time comes that the bull season is emerging, we will enjoy the fruits of our labor or hold it as much as we can especially bitcoin.
The risk can be easily minimized if you know what you are doing, it is simply fact because people are struggling to find out why they keep losing to their bitcoin investment because they basically no knowledge for them to use to create a wise strategy and decision to avoid making mistakes. Investing is really good and what's not good is putting your money on something that you cannot understand. There are only few investors who are aware to the fact that anything can happen in this volatile market, and for me if you are beginner investors it is better you should invest on your knowledge first before putting your hard earned money on bitcoin. Once you get knowledge, then you can use it as a sword to extract money from the market.
It seems pretty easy but in reality it is hard and that is why only few people are keep extracting money from the market.Make sure also if you will invest in bitcoin, do not buy using futures account because there is a downside of it which is the margin call that can makes your trading portfolio gone. Better to buy bitcoin using spot if you are using trading exchanges.