[contravariant]

I'm not saying crypto is like a gold standard, I'm saying it behaves more as a commodity (like gold) than a currency. There's a couple of properties that make gold really useful as a form of money (rare but available, easily divisible, easy to transport) some of which are shared by crypto. The main difference is that gold also has some intrinsic value, but I reckon most of its value comes from its use a store of value. If not convincingly gold looking jewellery should have a similar price, and I don't think that's the case.

Not sure if a metal backed currency is harder to mismanage. Lowering the metal content in coins or simply lowering the corresponding amount of metal have both happened. I'm pretty sure the US simply reneged on their promise to exchange promissory notes for gold at some point.

Frankly I think that no matter the currency bankers are going to abstract it into something that they can work with eventually.