Holding doesn't require much complicated knowledge but that doesn't mean you don't need knowledge. How can you buy and have enough confidence to hold bitcoin long term until it makes a profit if you have no knowledge? Trust and patience are two important and necessary things to be able to hold bitcoin long termm and to have those two things you need knowledge about bitcoin. And for a newbie like OP, I also think investing will be more suitable for him than trading even though trading will bring better profits.
It's indeed that holding doesn't require more effort as you only need knowledge whenever you will exit the market to get profit. For trading you would need to have analyzation, skills and always checking the market. You would also apply emotional and metal ability in order for you to have proper calls and get profits as well. But holding doesn't mean you would only hold it, it's like you're keeping a treasure not knowing the steps and what to do with it, so you really need knowledge as well in long term investment. Thing is in long term, by the word itself "long", you would require a lot of patience and consistency for you achieve your financial goal cause quick profits will go to trading. Trading is really complicated which is not recommendable to newbie unless he already have the knowledge and experience.
These two options are indeed ways to get benefits from what we choose, but if we can do both of these things we will certainly be able to get benefits from what we do and if we are not able to do both of these things, it would be better for us to use just one method to get a profit from the investment we make. Before trading, we must have mastered it well in order to avoid losses that might occur in the trades we carry out and if we choose to hold and hold it for a long period of time, of course the capital we use must come from a source that we will not disturb we can achieve the targets we have set.