You can avoid the fees on some bitcoin exchanges if you're a market maker, and with the volatility that's pretty easy most days. I made a couple 0% fee trades today alone. But, the second part is definitely true... you still need deep pockets to hold a long position.

Buy and hold doesn't have any recurring fees. If you look at the opportunity cost between crypto and any other financial security in the market, its an easy decision.

"Fees"

I see the margin lending rates on some exchanges right now being 0.003% daily. This is for coins that move 10% a day.

Probably fair to assume fees aren't what the traders lose sleep over.