I own a decent amount of gold and silver. Mostly numismatic at this point, but I'll get back to restocking the bullion. I would be doing quite well in a zombie apocalypse.

The thing about manipulation is that if it has worked in the past, it will work in the future. There isn't any reason to doubt that the schemes that have suppressed gold and silver in the past won't be used again. The great thing about crypto, is the central banks will have to come up with new strategies to control the price if they ever even cared about it. In theory, every bitcoin ever mined could be accounted for on the public blockchain ledger. Gold, in contrast, can be endlessly rehypothecated, fractionally reserve lent and naked shorted. If Fort Knox or JP Morgan had bitcoin wallets, everyone would know what's in there. No one, however, really knows what gold is actually in Fort Knox or the size of JP Morgan's derivatives book.