Different companies will issue their own digital claims on #gold , and by competing provide one layer of protection.

Historically the New England banks (especially Boston) served as a pro-specie bulwark, demanding note redemption and driving unsound banks out of business. The Federal Reserve was created as a government-backed cartel to force sound banks to expand currency and credit in unison with unsound banks - so instead of specie the unsound banks would be able to "redeem" in the notes of other banks. Expansion in concert prevented banks from driving each other out of business. Still, ordinary Americans could drive unsound banks out of business, and so the cartel was forced to default to them in 1933. Then foreigners could drive the unsound central bank out of business, and was forced to default to them in 1971.

Sometimes it seems Bitcoiners presume that everyone needs to be honest for gold to work, but in fact all that's needed is *anyone* to be honest. This is why the dishonest banks had to create a government cartel, had to disconnect US citizens from international gold, and have sent the US to war repeatedly to stop gold from emerging as a financial alternative. The real WMDs were Gaddafi's gold dinar & Hussein's plans to break from the US dollar system to trade in Euros & gold. In 2014 China purportedly told the US it wanted to go on the gold standard & the US replied that would be an act of war. But as the world has more equal technology and more evenly distributed industrial capacity, the US loses the ability to bully the rest of the world off gold. A world without a hegemon is a world where fiat dies quickly.