“In the bitcoin network, only coins that have already been mined can settle transactions. In a gold-based economy, only existing gold coins or bars can be used to settle transactions and extinguish debt. In both cases it is possible for a seller or lender to hand over their present goods in exchange for a promise of future bitcoin or gold, but they take on risk personally, and if the buyer or lender fails to provide the coins on time, they are lost to the lender, who would learn a valuable lesson about being more careful with lending. With fiat, government credit allows nonexistent tokens from the future to be brought to life to settle transactions in the present when a loan is made, allowing the borrower and lender to have a larger amount of fiat tokens between them than when they started, thus devaluing the rest of the network’s tokens. The fiat network creates more tokens every time a government-licensed entity makes a loan in the local fiat token.”
— The Fiat Standard: The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization by Saifedean Ammous