This is why sometimes for newbies, its better to just store the BTC in an exchange.

I am sure the OP didn't lose his BTC, it was all an misunderstanding however if you move your coins off the exchange there is so many points of failure.

Such as getting a virus on your computer, a phishing website, phishing software like Electrum had at the beginning of the year, clipboard viruses, etc.

Sure a hardware wallet is better but most won't buy one and in that case the BTC would be the safest at an exchange. So for new people, other than cold storage / hardware wallet the safest place is an exchange and just use a unique password with 2FA enabled.