The only reason that anyone would demand redemption of paper notes in gold is because they thought that the notes themselves had been devalued, or that the issuing bank might collapse. Gold itself, as money, rather than as commodity (for use in jewellery etc.) only had significance as a store of value, and it only acted as a store of value, because it had value, i.e. was a use value/commodity representing a given quantity of social labour-time. It is why cryptocurrencies have no value, and only act as volatile stores of value in the same way that any other speculative asset does, i.e. on the basis of limited supply, and speculative demand. Unlike other assets, however, they have no other function, and so no value, acting as a minimum determinant of their price.
However, as Marx sets out, gold itself, precisely because it is a commodity, and has value, determined by the labour-time required for its production, is variable in value, and consequently its exchange-value relative to other commodities is also variable. Ricardo and his followers engaged in a wild goose chase for an absolute measure of exchange-value, and proponents of theories of subjective value, like Samuel Bailey, used that as a means to attack the labour-theory of value itself. Bailey correctly points out that if the value of gold, as measure of value, fluctuates, then there can be no absolute measure of value, and the value of commodities then becomes only a matter of what the participants in each exchange are prepared to pay.
But, as Marx sets out, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20, this fact that the value of the money commodity, like all other commodities, is variable, as a result of changes in social productivity, raising or reducing the labour-time required for its production, does not change the fact that the direct measure of value, by labour-time, as against its indirect measure by exchange-value, is absolute, at any one time. In other words, if it takes 10 hours of universal labour to produce a metre of linen, this is an absolute measurement of its value, irrespective of the exchange value of linen for wine, or gold or any other commodity. The only thing that can change the value of a metre of linen, as against changes in its exchange-value or price, is a change in social productivity that increases or reduces the amount of labour-time required for its production.
And, the same applies to the money commodity itself. The only thing that can change its value is changes in social productivity, increasing or reducing the labour-time required for its production. But, if the value of an ounce of gold falls from 100 hours to 50 hours, it still functions as a stable means of indirectly measuring the value of other commodities, because its exchange relation to all of them, whilst changing, does so in the same proportion. It is like changing from measuring distance in yards to measuring it in feet; all distances would be increased by the same proportion, i.e. a factor of 3.
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