All Money Is Fiat Currency

The phrase "fiat money" refers to a currency that has exchange value because the people on both sides of the exchange act like it does.  They may realize the fiat nature of the currency in use, but they still honor it for the sake of mutual gain.  Fiat currency is sometimes treated as a separate category from other state-sponsored money tied to a particular metal, such as gold.  However, only a distinction of degree can be legitimately made between these two types of money.  At best, a currency is associated with some object like gold that is itself merely a fiat item.

There is a sense in which all money is some sort of fiat currency, as money is a digital or physical object used to make exchanges with others--in other words, money is a social construct, just not the kind of social construct that popular but false philosophical ideas reduce down to.  Money is not something found in the natural world or a self-evident fact of logic; it is something created by social beings in an effort to benefit themselves and/or those around them.  Thus, any particular currency has no inherent monetary value becaue monetary value is itself a social construct.

Even if a currency is backed by gold or some other coveted metal, does gold itself have intrinsic value?  It can be used for a variety of useful purposes, but this still has nothing to do with it having intrinsic monetary value.  Again, nothing has intrinsic monetary value because nothing is intrinsically a currency to begin with.  All economies are created by the societies that use them.  Some of them may use more stable and versatile kinds of objects or state-produced money as currency, but there is no objective financial value to either metals or bills.

All formal currencies are assigned a "value" that is subject to potential change.  Whatever metal or other physical substance might be used to back a currency is itself assigned a "value" that could change as social norms shift, so positing that not all money has an arbitrary, socially constructed financial value is outright false.  This, of course, is what makes all money a fiat currency!  Anyone who simply analyzes the concept of money in the light of reason thoroughly enough will come to this.

That all money is some kind of fiat currency does not mean there is basis for panic.  After all, there is no escaping the objective nature of currency, and money is necessary if people are likely to widely exchange belongings without one party taking from another by force at whim.  Entire economic systems still function despite currency having no wholly objective value.  When people distinguish between fiat and "other" currencies, it is foundational to recognize that there are different kinds of fiat money, but all money is inescapably fiat--and that this is not a devastating truth.