The second and often overlooked fact, is that, contrary to what the name might imply, no fiat money has come into circulation solely through government fiat; they were all originally redeemable in gold or silver, or currencies that were redeemable in gold or silver. Only through redeemability into salable forms of money did government paper money gain its salability. Government may issue decrees mandating people use their paper for payments, but no government has imposed this salability on papers without these papers having first been redeemable in gold and silver.
