If you can't trust them to hold a metal why in the hell would you trust them to hold anything else. If banks literally just went back to the gold standard it would fix a multitude of problems coming over the horizon, but they can't. The only way to be sensible is to hold your own metal, in your own safe, and trade small amounts into whatever fiat system is trendy at the time to quickly swap out for goods you need. That's the only way your wealth is saved these days. I would never recommend going all in with gold on a crypto like I'm suggesting, but small amounts switched so that you can buy something, and the recipient can switch it back out (because there's physical metal held, to go back into their own safe) is much better than whatever bullshit bitcoin is doing.