What about coins on exchanges? Do we lose the staking benefits thus we are being debased if we HODL them on exchanges? I realize HODLing coins on exchanges is risky and stupid. (⊙_◎)
You can't HODL coins on exchanges, can you ? You can hodl IOU on exchanges, while they are hodling coins (or playing with it, or buying cocaine and prostitutes with it). You hodl tokens in a centralized database for as long as the owner of the database wants to let you own them, but you don't own any crypto tokens. Essentially, you've bought exchange IOU tokens in their database with crypto tokens with which you paid them.
Really you shouldn't refer to the Dash wallet (or the wallet for any centralized coin run by whales debase your tokens at will, manipulate the exchange value, and "accidentally" have bugs that ... etc) with such brutal frankness.
Lesson: control over a public/private key pair doesn't necessarily mean you own anything.