What is "money"?

[Art_from_Ark]

61. You can't just go making up your own definitions

and expect everyone to go along with you. That's not how it works.

"Fiat" in this case specifically refers to government decree. Currency is circulating money, coin of the realm. It is not coupons, scrip, tokens, or wampum. It is given specific denominations by the issuing authority, which in nearly all cases is a government. The government decrees, by fiat, that one piece of paper is worth $100, while another piece of paper is only worth $1, yet the intrinsic value of the paper is the same, which is to say nearly zero. The currency has nothing backing up its value except for confidence in the issuing authority.

On the other hand, precious metals have, by definition and historical precedence, intrinsic value. A government can stamp a one-ounce disk of gold and give it an arbitrary value of $50, but that coin will never circulate for $50 because its intrinsic value is far higher than its face value. The only time gold would be a fiat currency would be if a government gave that same one-ounce disk of gold a face value of say, $2000 ($700 more than today's market value), and the coin actually circulated as money at that face value. But the only coin that (ostensibly) meets that criterion today is the 100,000 yen commemorative coin that Japan issued in 1986 and 87 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Showa Emperor. The face value is worth a little more than $1000, yet the gold value is only around $950.