precious metals are the most reliable way to invest, at least before the creation of cryptocurrency
Well if we're being honest, it still is now. Crypto's explosion has been massive and have proven plenty of critics wrong, but it's still way too early to believe that it has beaten other traditional investments reliability-wise. Scalability should be achieved, at the very least, before we even start comparing the two.
In any case, they're not competitors anyway. You don't have to choose one or the other, and it would be foolish to do so.