First bull run for me and I do not have any Bitcoin yet but do want some after this bull run to hold until 2030 at least.
Is it best to take my altcoin profits in the next 6-12 months at the bull run peak and then buy Bitcoin in 2026 during the next bear market?
I see some advise to just convert my profits straight into Bitcoin but in doing that I would be buying Bitcoin at the highest prices so don't understand that.
Impossible to say. Best just to avoid altcoins in general. Not sure why you only have alts and no bitcoin. Guessing you jumped into the market without really knowing what you were doing.
There's no way to know when your specific altcoins will go up or down. They could peak well before bitcoin peaks, Altcoins are fads so there is no way to know if the specific altcoins you have will be the "in" fad at the time when bitcoin is peaking, or if they'll peak well before that, or even not peak until after the bear market starts.
Only best advice anyone can give you is to get out of alts and get into Bitcoin and hold Bitcoin long term. It's entirely up to you to decide when you get out of that cr*p and move into Bitcoin.
Also know way to know where Bitcoin bottoms next bear market. I think it'll probably bottom in the $60,000s, but maybe it'll go all the way down to $40,000s or $50,000s, maybe it won't drop below $80k. Nobody can tell you.
If people are telling you to convert right now to Bitcoin, they are simply advising the safest thing, because the sooner you are out of alts and into Bitcoin the safer your money is. If you don't sell until late in the bull market then yeah it will probably turn out better for you to wait for a crash after the bull market ends, but nobody can tell you when or at what price to buy back. Nobody can tell you when the best time to sell your alts or to buy back into bitcoin is. But when talking about moving from risky short term fads to the best currency humanity has ever had (which also happens to be the most successful public investment in human history), the sooner the better is a decent strategy.