Gold has a use case in the real world. We can't manufacture it, so every time it is used to plate a printed circuit board, or XYZ other real application someone needs to purchase it from someone else. Some amount gets recycled, but certainly some not.

Crypto has zero fundamental use case in the real world.

Yes I know but... is that use case what really drives the price in the real world? I'm really asking. My intuition would say "no, the main driver is people trading it as a financial product", just like Bitcoin.

In the 1960s and 70s European countries became nervous about the US economy and sent dollars to NYC in exchange for gold.

The US even dispatched some high ranking officials to Europe to stem the tide. It predictably had the opposite effect. So America had the option: stop printing money because gold reserves are finite or end the gold standard.