Being pegged to gold and being secured by gold aren't the same thing. The gold that backed the dollar had already been dug up. It was already in the hands of t

Being pegged to gold and being secured by gold aren't the same thing. The gold that backed the dollar had already been dug up. It was already in the hands of the government. Whatever the costs were to get it, they were sunk costs based on the value of the gold, not the currency system layered on top of it. The dollar was secured via tricky-to-duplicate printing techniques and police powers.