Any type of investment has risks. Cryptos are especially volatile and everyone should do their research before investing. If you were holding BTC bought before 2017 there's no shame in taking profits and playing with house money.
Unless you have a large amount of capital with which to purchase BTC with, the average person is probably better off buying something else at this point to get more profits. BTC's market cap is already so high, and while you could probably still double your money with BTC in the next few years, no one knows and you could have much quicker gains looking at coins with smaller market caps and then reinvesting your profits in BTC. So if you only got a couple grand, it doesn't really make much sense IMO to buy a small position in Bitcoin and pray for the moon.
Shorting BTC would be delusional, there's no way to tell the price direction with certainty, but if past trends are indicative of the future, shorting is a horrible idea. Plus your upside on a short is limited to 100%, as opposed to unlimited upside on a long position, so if you're going to use it as a gambling vehicle, going long is the way to go.
Also, if a group of nerds and Libertarians brought bitcoin to close to 20k, can you imagine where it will go once the popular kids get on board, once it gets its first celebrity endorsements?
If was a gambler (which I am), which is the one of BTC's uses, and is also a very common use for many people buying bitcoin right now, I would be doing everything I can to get celebrity endorsements. Even just getting hot girls on Instagram to say a few words would work. Let's say you have $100,000 in bitcoin or whatnot, it wouldn't be a bad idea to give a tiny amount of bitcoin to some mega-influencer young women on instagram or other social apps. Every person that buys has a vested interest in getting more people to buy in, so if you can get social media influencers (as in, hot girls) to buy in, this thing could go all the way to $1,000,000 a coin or more.
Think of a campaign hashtag like #raiseAwarenessBTC or something more catchy, I'm sure some of the forum members with a stronger marketing background could come up with something that works. Give bitcoins, even if only a small amount, whatever, to social media influencers, imagine what happens to the price if someone like The Rock mentions he's bought in? The Rock would be hard to get because he's already rich, so he doesn't need your bitcoin, but look for people with not too much money, but lots of followers to bring onboard, they'll be more likely to jump on for a smaller amount. If you have a larger amount to give, then by all means, sign up a whale.
You could even give it a cute Christmas theme, disguise the self-interest in the spirit of Christmas, say, #ChristmasBTC or whatnot, with Santa Claus images attached and cute reindeer.
Nonstop mentions, nonstop articles, take over everyone's mindspace until you get as many people onboard as possible.
At times it feels like there is nothing driving these markets that makes any rational sense. Like everyone is just buying and the coins hold value because of the greater fool theory. And while this whole sphere is just built on speculation, at least we know it isn't tulips or beanie babies like some fearmongers with no skin in the game would have you believe. Out of all the people I've encountered who either bash Bitcoin or bring up "bubble" or "tulips" 100% of them do not own Bitcoin...which does not surprise me one bit