It is, in other words, a con game. A gold brick is valuable, as long as you have confidence in it. Scrape off the gold paint, and your confidence evaporates. Because it is intangible, you can't scrape the gilt off modern money. The market place, however, can bring about the same effect.
Precious metals have approximately the same exchange rate that they had when used as money.
The mental money, however, is losing its exchange value from month to month, and we are expected to believe that this is somehow a cosmic catastrophe, like an impending collision with a meteorite, and not something which could, and should, be anticipated, or, indeed, is intended. At least you can buy that for a few cents on the dollar. But if economic stability is the goal, let's get back to barter.