Just like you said, a full circle which is 4 years can be slightly considered enough time for someone who is nearing retirement age to HODL depending on your financial strength and health status which will determine if they can go longer than a full cycle. Then for the vibrant youths who are full of life an energy, they can decide to HODL for more than a decade depending on when their target is met because as an investor, their is need to set a target for your investment so that when you reach your target, you can figure out whether to continue or not.
The dilemma is whenever Bitcoin price goes high people start saying it's too high to jump in now. Anyone who is new to Bitcoin must start from whatever price he see while investing and don't wait for the dip. Bitcoin has a cycle of 4 years and after every 4 years we see new ATH. To be on safe side invest for minimum of 5 years and that's how one can see full potential of Bitcoin.
Waiting for a drop to buy Bitcoin prevents investors from making more profits. What we can learn from the past Bitcoin equation is that its price will be higher than expected. High profits and investment go hand in hand, so you should invest in Bitcoin from today, with a time horizon of ten years rather than five years. Sometimes it is better to focus on holding Bitcoin than to make a profit. In the hope of making more profits in the future.
Those who would mostly enjoy the dividend of Bitcoin are the core HODLers, they don't care about the price they buy it and when they are going to sell it, all they care about is HODL, HODL and HODL. Can you imagine what those people's portfolios could be in the next 2 decades? That's the spirit. I recently realised that the purchase of Bitcoin is not always enough, even if you have as much BTC as possible, you can't possibly regret if you add more periodically. This is sweeter when you suddenly see that Bitcoin has dipped, which is the best time to Buy more, HODL and Repeat.
Of course, that's because they knew about the future of bitcoin, which is why they keep accumulating without paying attention to the price. But I think this set of people is very rare, because not everyone that can afford to do that more especially when the value is still very much expensive. Because most people will be scared of losing, I think is just a personal decision.
Talking about the purchase of bitcoin not being enough, actually I was also thinking the same. is still of recent that I realized that there is no limit in accumulating bitcoin, one is always free to accumulate as much as he can. moreover I think you're right when you said that investing in bitcoin is good when there is a dip in the value, because the price will be somehow affordable during that process.
Am still in shock seeing that there are still those who thinks Bitcoin is expensive, when the idea and concept of DCA strategy dominates most of the forum threads including local boards, Bitcoin is ever affordable even at the peak price because you are not buying the whole Bitcoin but a fraction of it within your financial circumstances which of course can be either weekly or monthly, with the dca strategy you can be Bitcoin whether in dip or not, regularly provided that your investment money readily available which gives you another opportunity of buying Bitcoin in a dip because you will be buying from different price points in different intervals, for an investor with the aim of buying Bitcoin and holding for long term, investing in Bitcoin is good at any time which is the best approach because the market is unpredictable.