Due to the high and low price, there is a higher chance of loss than profit in a short-term investment. Even if there is some people make profit in short time investment but it is much less compared to long-term profit. In the bull run of 2013,
the price of Bitcoin was aprox $1100 and then it came down to $200. Those who sold in a short time lost money. But those who invested for more than 5 years at that time made many times more profit. A similar situation was seen during the bull run of 2017.
Usually if a guy started investing in bitcoin towards the top, he would have had ended up bring ing down his average cost per BTC a lot if he continued to buy for something like 5 years, or even if may be he bought for 3 years on a weekly basis with a combination of DCA and perhaps lump sum buying during times that he might come across extra money. He could also buy on dips, though it may not necessarily make much difference if he might be regularly buying... and just riding out the wave... so even a guy who came into bitcoin towards the top at $1,100, he may could have had an average cost per BTC around $400 to $600 by the time 2017 came. Similar a guy who might have had started buying bitcoin around $19k in 2017 might have had still ended up with an average cost of BTC that is around $7k to $8k by the time he gets through 2020.
I suspect the less disposable income people have, the more they feel inclined "to time the market perfectly". Yes they should not do that because without a good portion of luck, nobody is going to time it perfectly. But it is this desire to see their holdings grow in dollar value more quickly.
You are correct that frequently poor people think that they have to be more strategic with their buys, and surely there are some poor people who are trading when they think they are investing, so they may not have enough discretionary income to be able to invest...
Yet, if they have discretionary income, as little as $10 per week that they are able to dedicate towards investing in bitcoin, they are likely better to invest that weekly rather than trying to save it up for a large dip that might not happen... so if they invest $10 per week for 10 years, then they would have $5,200 invested into bitcoin, and if they did it for 20 years they would have $10,400 invested into bitcoin.. which could start to add up to some good size money, also partially depending on how bitcoin's price performs during that time.
Sure if you are a billionaire and you invest a sum of money and it goes up 30%, you still have reasons to celebrate your BTC position. I understand it is not quite the same for someone starting with $1000. But this is exactly where they should set themselves free this thought process. In a few years time, if they invest continuously and once simply decided to get started, 30% changes will begin to matter.
Sure. We could have someone who is brand new to bitcoin, and they have $1k that they want to put into bitcoin, and maybe they have an income in which they are earning $600 per month and their expenses are around $400. So they have $200 extra per month that they could invest (maybe $45-ish per week?). They might also need to make sure that they have back up funds that are around $1,200, which is three months of their expenses, but they don't have to have the back up funds prior to getting started. They can build up the back up funds and the bitcoin at the same time.
So in regards to the $1k they should consider four places to put it 1) DCA, 2) lump sum and/or 3) buy dips. and 4) back up funds. They are already going to buy $45 per week with their DCA so they could add to their weekly DCA.
or they could put $250 into each of the 4 categories, yet how much they put into their back up funds might depend on how much they already have as back up funds. Many people will generally operate with 2-6 weeks of some kind of back up funds, so how much they already have is a fact to take into account.
After all the idea that "low" % increases for those with less money have no impact on their holdings eventually applies to any type of investment they choose to make. But if they are looking for an asset that has high potential to give them enormous compound effects over time, they would still make a very comprehnsible decision to get started with BTC as of today. Not everyone will need Amazon or Apple shares in their lives ever, but I would not rule out that everyone will one day need at least a little bit of BTC for whatever purpose. It is a whole different type of investment with a more complex investment hypothesis than any other asset class.
I doubt that we need to talk about inferior investments here. The main concern should be figuring out how much bitcoin they are able to buy and to build that up during the years and likelihood of a 4-10 year or longer investment timeline.
They may consider if they are able to invest 5% or 25% of their income into bitcoin, and surely many folks might have difficulties investing 10%, but if they were able to invest 25%, then they could invest a whole years income into bitcoin in 4 years, yet surely it might not be a good idea to aim for that level of aggressiveness from the start, even though they might be able to work up to that level once they get used to buying bitcoin on a weekly basis and set up their systems for both their buying of bitcoin and their cashflow management systems and back ups.