I think maybe I am not framing my question properly. I was not suggesting any 'peg' or otherwise, just referring to what was done in the past. Let me fully characterize the thing I don't understand:
1) Real gold exists.
2) Real gold is not as perfect as Bitcoin might be as a standard of value, but it is a reasonable approximation.
3) The existence of real gold does not currently appear to have any effect at all of pushing fiat currencies toward embodying the properties of a more "ideal currency".
4) The use of gold in the past to make fiat currencies relied on the issuer to voluntarily link the value of the currency to gold.
5) It seems unlikely that any fiat currency issuer would establish any such linkage between their currency and Bitcoin.
So how does the "finger trap" that will supposedly compel fiat currencies to converge asymptotically to "ideal" currency work? If these fiat issuers are not influenced by the existence of real gold, why would a more "perfect" gold, in the form of Bitcoin, be any thing more than marginally more successful in that regard?
I know the answer should be that they will get there by acting in their own rational interest - but I can't seem to piece together how that will work exactly.
PS - You must be using a different version of "Ideal Money" than any I can find on the web... I cannot find the quote below in my copy.
…my personal view is that a practical global money might most favorably evolve through the development first of a few regional currencies of truly good quality. And then the “integration” or “coordination” of those into a global currency would become just a technical problem. (Here I am thinking of a politically neutral form of a technological utility rather than of a money which might, for example, be used to exert pressures in a conflict situation comparable to “the cold war”.)