Before 1971, each Federal Reserve note issued was backed by a legally specified amount of gold held by the U.S. Treasury, however, private citizens were not allowed to redeem notes for gold dollars.

The US’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is not among these ... But we must also note that another reason the Fed isn’t buying gold is that the Fed hasn’t been in the gold-owning business ...

1424 ET – Most-active gold futures fall 0.2% following the Federal Reserve’s decision to leave ... says Robert Yawger of Mizuho Securities USA in a note. Front-month gold futures inched ...

So fundamental was gold to the Fed’s operations that its enabling legislation “mandated that each dollar of Federal Reserve notes be backed by at least 40 cents in gold,” the New York Fed has noted.