[jvm]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that they are printing money to pay for government expenses. That actually works okay on a small scale (economically, it's roughly equivalent to deficit spending), but if you do it too much the currency loses all value.

Crypto actually proves that money doesn't need to be backed by anything. It simply achieves value by being a) useful for transactions and b) scarce. The US dollar's scarcity is carefully handled by the Federal Reserve which is why it has stable value. In Venezuela, the government simply prints money to spend without a thought to managing scarcity, and hyperinflation is the natural result. Collective belief is important, yes, but it's simply a belief about the future scarcity of the currency.

[vilmosi]

>>> Crypto actually proves that money doesn't need to be backed by anything.

Well no, since it's not used as currency in any meaningful scale.