The other way to look at this could be to avoid a situation where countries in deep debt/financial troubles decline to refund the gold and currencies collapse (you can print money but not gold) and natiionalize everythiing or thinking of a world war situatiion where physical gold matters and represents economy. It might be a fantasy thought but at the end, in changing trade/financial equation, its always better to have a physical gold quoted in USD vs, having a USD bank balance equvivalent to buy physical gold