Why Hold Crypto Currency in a Wallet

Why should you hold a crypto in a wallet

Keeping your money in the exchange sounds like a good idea. Its easy to make spur-of-the-moment trades when those candlesticks start glowing green. Some bad press came out about ripple and you know the price is going to plummet, but you can sell that coin immediately. Its easy, you've got a live count of how your money is growing because all your investments are in one place and easy to track. These are all the things that I've been telling myself for the last year. I've also been very fortunate to not have become the victim of any exchange hacks or exchange insider trading.
One major thing I'm starting to find out is, there are some big rewards I'm missing out on by not keeping my currencies in a wallet. There are currencies out right now that provide dividend payouts to their holders based on how much of the currency you hold. Now that's a simplified explanation but essentially that's what's going on. Lumens(XLM) for example has an inflation. Similar to how a savings account pays you interest based on how much you have in your account, stellar does the same. The process is more involved (check out lumen inflation pool) but having your currency in a wallet that you own is required. Cadano(ADA) is another coin that requires your holdings to be in a wallet before you can take part in their POS (Proof of Stake) which, according to Cardano's website, should be rolling out to the public later this year. Then there are other currencies that use Masternodes as their way to verify transactions. You basically set your wallet up along with a virtual processor that can run 24/7 to process through transactions, and in turn a portion of the transaction fees get paid back to you. How much you get depends on the amount of that currency you hold. These require large initial investments and a bit of technical know-how, but If you want to participate in this technology you also have to put that currency in a wallet.