Can I ever sell my Ripple & Stellar account "reserve"...?

[zeroth]

Hi everyone,

So whenever I make a Ripple or Stellar account I seem to have to leave a certain "reserve" in that account. Is there any way this can be recovered? Can I "close" the account to withdraw that final amount? I've been importing some Ripple private keys to GateHub which means a new account is made for every private key and I lose around $8 each time. Or is this unique to online wallets like GateHub and the Stellar Portal? I.e. can I download and sync full wallets to recover the funds?

Thanks,

Zeroth

[WoolfUniversity]

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