Coming from a gold bug: you can still create an infinite number of IOUs on gold. Thats what the dollar was before Nixon closed the gold window. The fed was running a fractional reserve on their gold. Believe it or not they still are today, despite folks and major nations no longer have the ability to trade their dollars for some amount of the US treasury gold.

Look into the market value of the gold certificates that the fed has on its books. The fed hasn't marked their gold position to the market since the 70s. Very peculiar if you ask me. Also consider why each of the federal reserve banks trade these certificates amongst one another.

On top of that you can read the treasury's website and find that the policy states that the treasury gold plays an important role as collateral on the dollar https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages... "Congress has specified that a Federal Reserve Bank must hold collateral equal in value to the Federal Reserve notes that the Bank receives. This collateral is chiefly gold certificates and United States securities. This provides backing for the note issue. The idea was that if the Congress dissolved the Federal Reserve System, the United States would take over the notes (liabilities). This would meet the requirements of Section 411, but the government would also take over the assets, which would be of equal value. Federal Reserve notes represent a first lien on all the assets of the Federal Reserve Banks, and on the collateral specifically held against them."