I think you've provided some excellent observations and insights here, my friend. I'd like to point out one other good reason for HODLing precious metals.
As a store of value, they are quite excellent. When "lean times" come, as they have for me over the last six months or so, I have been able to easily and privately convert some metal to fiat to help tide us through the tough going.
My point here, however, is twofold:
First, you can use your stored metal "for a rainy day," not just for hurricane weather.
Second, at this point in history, I see greater potential value in crypto. Consequently, for my "rainy day" needs I've tended toward liquidating the metal before the crypto...
In addition to learning network coding, as I've spoken of elsewhere, I also need to learn how to buy and sell crypto on the new distributed exchanges (such as bitshares) in order to leverage the value that I have already.