I don't see any easy possibility of taking any losses, aside from act of carelessness and just as you mentioned (playing out either in trying to sell too soon to buy back or trying altcoin as a means to become less stiff in your investment). Bitcoin is a safe assets to invest into, if the future is yet unknown but then history holds how Bitcoin has moved from so low to a crazy all time high, now also would serve as a history to the future only to those who seized the opportunity of accumulating now and hold instead of relying on doubting the outcome of the market, whether profitable or not.
The only reason why they lose on holding if they buy the news then get panic with it.
A lot of us actually bought the news at some point but the intention differs. Some bought the news hoping to sell immediately for quick profit and get roasted. Some bought the news because they don't want to miss buying at lower prices even though their intention is for long term holding. Let me give example of such case. Late last year, the news about the ETF approval was all over the place and this triggered some initial moves in the market already. Consequently, many of us increased our buying amount to get more Bitcoin before the price get out of hand because the expectation was that after the ETF approval, Bitcoin might create a new price regime that will totally different from what we had then. Indeed it happened that after the ETF approval, price shifted to a new ATH and since then we have not seen price so low again. Now we had good positions filled at pre-ETF prices which is still sitting in huge profits now because the intention was to buy and HODL. So, one can actually take advantage of the news to increase his Bitcoin.