Those are all important points for us to recognize when making these decisions. Another factor is the stability of metal as a physical object, existing on it's own merits. You take a piece of gold out of the market pool and even if all the markets break apart, that metal still exists and retains it's value from rarity, and can still be traded locally. The main flaw I see in digital currencies, is that for them to exist and keep their liquidity, the market pool also needs to exist and function. If and WHEN the governments in the west begin faking hacking attacks on the power grid and/or finance systems (late this year possibly), it's going to be a lot safer to hold physical assets that can retain their value intrinsically, on it's own physical merits. Power cuts might effect the price of crypto transfers and mining, which may raise the price as well, or possibly crash the whole network if severe enough. The same goes for a rare but increasingly likely solar flare taking down the network and possibly wiping out half of the crypto pool. I see crypto currencies as a transfer medium, while metals are firmly seen as a storage medium. I'm no expert though... happy to hear counters to this. A lot of this might come down to how much of these assets we are talking about. High level finance on the short term, crypto wins in my mind. But for the average person/individual it seems that metals is the best bet for storage, while digital is the best for speculation and liquidity. Although, I am still bullish on silver over the next 5 years.