I think if I were trying to get an economy started again, I'd want to base it on that I controlled, like notes that I'd printed myself. I wouldn't based it on something like gold because there could be people with large stashes of it. You'd have no idea how much was in circulation. I think you'd want new wealth to be based on what people did of value after the crisis, not on what they happened to have inherited from before it.

I could be wrong, though. You'd also want something that was difficult to forge.