>A gold-backed currency is redeemable at any time in gold. History begs to differ. The fractional reserve banking system was the legalization of the practice of banks printing more gold certificates than they had in the vault. That's literally the genesis story of fractional reserve banking. >The gold holds its value because it can't be printed like money. Now when banking families own 99% of the supply and control the market. The gold market is highly leveraged and they can crush the price at will. If they see your country in a financially vulnerable state, such as leveraged in debt because of a war, all they have to do is suppress the price of gold to drive you into insolvency.