Holding makes you owner of your funds and that ownership is what makes it easier to understand what bitcoin is actually. If I’m going to trade my bitcoin or may be invest it somewhere then it’s going to be just another fiat ecosystem. Having a wallet with private keys makes me owner of those bitcoin. I am not loosing any value if I consider one bitcoin equals to one bitcoin. I only lose it if I sell it or send it to someone or maybe consider it’s value in terms of fiat. Anyways that’s another story but Holding is MUST at least with my own experience.
Gaining knowledge is quite different from holding but in all we need to establish a way that will keep triggering our urge to hold for as long as we want. It is very difficult for us to hold and one of the things that normally trigger us to continue holding is when we have other investment too that are giving us money. Since the market is very volatile, then we need to make sure that we study the market enough and know the duration of how we intend to hold. The market is down now and it's obvious that the market will soon take a bold bullish move soon and if we are a good holder, we can earn more from it when the market finally go bullish.