Yes and I reject the idea you NEED monetary expansion. I believe in Venice, it was illegal to not hold the deposits of gold. The bankers made money with service fees, NOT state sanctioned theft.
“Venice?”
Gold doesn’t leave banks, if they have it, for ordinary transactions. That is why the draft and check were developed, mainly by the Medici of Florence, in order to allow large foreign trade prevented by the requirement of financing traded with physical gold.
Without this development of credit the world’s economy would be much smaller, the people much poorer and political struggles even more intense. Socialism would probably have triumphed across the world and Lord knows it is close enough even without gold.
It is important to remember that gold does not produce a rate of return, a rate of return which allows one to buy gold.
Gold is not anti-inflationary either. Look at prices around a mining camp. The gold taken from the New World set off a century long inflation throughout Europe.