When you are mining you are giving life to the network by verifying the transactions, the more computers get hooked up to this network the higher the security of the network and the more the difficulty when mining.

If the coin is difficult to mine then it's worth more. There comes a point in which it is not profitable to mine with certain equipment like laptops because they are not strong enough against the difficulty to gain any significant rewards when new coins are generated by the process of mining or confirming the transactions for the network.

That's why many people opt to mine with a third party, because they manage to reduce energy costs and/or have specialized equipment for mining.

Holding Dash is an option too for helping to increase the value of the coin, because by taking the Dash out of circulation (not using it) others have less to distribute among themselves which makes it rare, valuable, because it's hard to come by since there is a limited supply and only so many Dash will ever be created.

I, however, think mining is more beneficial to the network than just holding. Because the network can survive just fine without people holding for too long, but the network wouldn't exist without the computers verifying the transactions.

When you are mining you are also holding, so long as you don't spend whatever you are paid daily.

I meant cents in dollars, fractions of a Dash.