Who says that? This thread seems to be full of arm chair lawyers as another comment just told me that there is no gold standard since 1970.
Whatever, the thing I want to buy with the particular coin would immediately reduce 40.000 fold in price. That might be illegal in some sense, if contracts are bound to stay valid across fluctuation, but that's basically how markets work.
In the end it's all numbers on paper anyway, so I don't see the immediate implication, except that a state is supposed not to go on a lone run.
