Should be more encouraging that this guy wants to figure it out instead of pointing and jeering at him.
If the company pays a dividend it gets sent to you (or to whoever holds the stock on your behalf), but that doesn't seem like "using" the stock. I suppose you could "use" it by voting at the AGM.
Crypto you can make use of (such as it is), but no one does that. They hold it like a stock, same as the OP who doesn't know how to create a wallet.
> I suppose you could "use" it by voting at the AGM
Is my stock anything other than the number of shares I see on TDAmeritrade.com? If I wanted to take this thing that I supposedly own and sell it or store it in a way that doesn’t involve TDAmeritrade.com, is that even possible? No fucking clue.
My point was, there is really no "use" for a stock holding aside from the obvious as an investment. So simply investing in and holding a stock is fine.
The popular Crypto coins are supposed to have other uses, like a cash replacement. In fact cash replacement was intended to be the primary use for Bitcoin. But most people treat them as an investment they can just sit on and watch go up, like a stock.
I think the best strategy for someone in your case is to cashout from coinbase into whatever fiat currency you use locally and put that into your bank account.