I bought some gold/silver on the advice of a financially 'knowledgeable' colleague. He made a case for it going up quite considerably, but that was a year and a half ago.

I think gold/silver has its place to maintain wealth, but for it to go up in rapid steps would require complete monetary meltdown, ie. the kind of circumstances that jr3951 mentioned. Ultimately its just shiny metal, with limited use outside advanced manufacturing.

I dont know enough about bitcoin yet to make a judgement.