I agree with you up to a point. It's true that you need custodians on a gold standard, which is one of many reasons that bitcoin is superior money to gold. You are also right that fractional reserve banking is an assumption for this article. But, for all its faults, a gold backed fractional reserve system was superior to the purely debt based fractional system we have today.

If Stacker News existed in the 1800s, and we all wrote each other letters, we would all be gold bugs.

siggy47

bitcoin

Why a gold standard is a very bad idea

This article assumes the continued legalization of fractional reserve banking and you know under a gold standard they're probably right to assume that given you need custodians to transact with gold. 

That volatility is coming from credit expansions and deleveragings. People taking out debt (which is money printing under fractional reserve banking) and people paying off debt. 