The Flaw of The Gold Standard

The fatal flaw of the gold standard was that settlement in physical gold was heavy, expensive, and insecure, which meant it had to rely on centralizing physical gold reserves in a few locations—banks and central banks—leaving them vulnerable to being taken over by governments.

Although gold was supposedly demonetized fully in 1971, central banks continued to hold significant gold reserves, and only disposed of them slowly, before returning to buying gold in the last decade.