It's infinitely easier to print money at will, which is what keeps happening. Gold has intrinsic value for practically all of human existence.
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."
This is why Islam, Judaism, and Christianity prohibit interest. That closes the door on exploits like this.
The intrinsic value argument hardly makes any sense because it's almost always lower than the actual value. Someone interested in intrinsic value would be buying copper, not gold.
Compare this to Bitcoin which can be replaced by any competitor.
Compare this to the US dollar which is required to pay taxes. You will still see a use case for the dollar in a hundred years.
When talking about money, the term intrinsic value means the market value of the commodity the money is made from, versus the face value of the money.
This is very real and has been exploited in the past, with people effectively melting down large quantities of money and selling it as a commodity.