As Warren Buffett says, which would you rather own, a bunch of bits [0] that are going to be the same in 20 years, or shares in a bunch of companies where other people are working day and night to increase the value of the company?

[0] Buffett said "hunk of yellow metal", which unlike Bitcoin, has some intrinsic and widely recognized value

Other people are also working day and night to suck out as much value from those companies as possible. Let's not ignore the multiple tried-and-true strategies for siphoning wealth from common-stock shareholders into the pockets of CEOs and board members. That is what the CEOs of most publicly-traded companies are spending their time trying to do. Would you rather own a shiny hunk of gold, or a paper whose value is constantly under attack from smart, Harvard-educated parasites?

I'm not saying that, in this scenario, putting all of your money into a 401k fund for 20 years is a good idea either. In fact I think it should be fairly obvious that asking the question implies that "standard investment advice" must be revalidated for its applicability.