The gol standard is a monetary system in which a region's common media of exchange are paper notes which receive substantial premia because they are normally freely convertible into fixed quantities of gold. Under a gold standard, money issuers normally stand willing to redeem their notes, upon demand, for pre-set, intertemporally constant, fixed amounts of gold. The gold standard is not currently used by any government, having been replaced completely by fiat currency, and private currencies backed by gold are rare.