Personally, I think Gold IS better than bitcoin...and least for long term stability and safety. There's probably a lot more reward potential in Bitcoin. But right now, a determined government like the U.S. or Russia could destroy Bitcoin if it wanted to because of the the combination of their ability to generate hashing power or go after large concentrations of hashing power. There's also way too many issues for the average non-technical person to have to deal with right now. How to set up a wallet, how to make sure you never ever lose you keys, the complete lack of safety in online wallets and exchanges, etc. Heck, I doubt most people adequately back up their pictures and other personal documents. To not adequately back-up a cryptocurrency wallet with a large investment would be disastrous. And even then, you are only ever one hack away from losing everything. These types of issues have to be overcome before large scale investment will ever take place. Until then, it's largely early adopters only.

I think that cryptocurrency has a huge future with infinite investment potential, I'm just not sure that Bitcoin is the answer or that safety and ease of use are where they need to be yet. Until they are, it's going to be an unstable and bumpy ride.