Crashes are a manic-depressive devotional cycle. Collective optimism becomes stretched to delusional levels. Then it snaps, pessimism and debt paranoia take over, the central government has to make reassuring noises which reassure the right people, and the hype cycle can begin again.
Gold is a faith-token - valued because it's heavy and shiny and because there's a long tradition of valuing it when investors become pessimistic about more evanescent asset classes, not because of its relatively limited practical utility.
Fiat money is just faith-token money without a tangible base. The process by which it gains/loses trust is the same.
The tangible items that aren't primarily faith-based are land and housing, so they do well as reliable investments. But even they're not faith-free, because they will still lose value in an area if no one believes it has a future.