No, it's not. From investopedia:
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Fiat money is a
government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it. The value of fiat money is derived from the relationship between supply and demand and the stability of the issuing government, rather than the worth of a commodity backing it. Most modern paper currencies are fiat currencies, including the U.S. dollar, the euro, and other major global currencies.
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Source:
Fiat Money: What It Is, How It Works, Example, Pros & Cons | investopedia.com
Now, that's not to say that governments can't create cryptos of their own. Venezuela did this with its Petro, but I'm not impressed. An article on it:
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It sounded too good to be true – and it was. The Petro’s launch was fraught with a myriad of troubles, from vague statements from the Venezuelan government to outright lies. For example, officials stated that before the release of the Petro they had already sold over 700 million dollars.
When crypto-traders checked the blockchain they quickly realized that every single Petro was owned by a single wallet and there wasn’t even one transaction. So, was the Petro a scam? Not really. The Blockchain exists, and people have been able to buy and sell Petros.
Nevertheless, the currency is shrouded in mystery and drama. For example, Joey Zhou, Etherium’s creator, pointed out that the Petro’s whitepaper was a blatant clone of Dash’s. And the latest controversy seems to be that the Petro was hard-forked a couple of weeks ago, with the block explorer showing that the genesis block was mined in 2018 and on May 5th, 2020.
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Source:
Government-issued cryptocurrencies: An overview | blockgeeks.com
I'd like to say that the last time I moved the 2 largest cryptos by market cap, Bitcoin and Ethereum, I wasn't impressed with either them, Bitcoin in particular. Ethereum was fairly expensive to move in the past. Bitcoin was even more so, and very slow to move as well. However, I checked just now and the cost to move Ethereum has gone way down, to a little less than 3 cents to move from one wallet to another:
Does a transaction between two accounts of an Ethereum Wallet cost fees? | ethereum.stackexchange.com
Another plus about Ethereum is that it's no longer mined, which would take a lot of energy that I think can be better used on things people actually need, like heating their homes.
Bitcoin doesn't seem to have improved much if at all. The cost to transfer it has varied over its lifetime. It's currently around $2, which isn't bad if you're doing large transactions, but obviously bad for small ones. And it's gone a lot higher than that:
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As Business Insider reported, the cost of sending a Bitcoin transaction was averaging around $37 during a peak in popularity in late 2017. According to CoinDesk, there was even a brief period of time in April 2021 where the average fee was roughly $59.
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Source:
Crypto Transaction Fees: How Much it Costs to Send Bitcoin | blog.invity.io
Another thing about Bitcoin is that it's still mined, and it is by far the most energy intensive mining in the market of mined cryptos.
Personally, I'd much prefer owning the home I live in over owning the equivalent value in crypto. Crypto values go up and down all the time, but not having to pay rent every month is a steady gain. Also, the value of a home is generally much less fraught to the types of ups and downs that cryptos have. That being said, the value of the top cryptos in generaly has steadily risen in the long term. I still remember the story of how the first Bitcoin transaction involved paying 10,000 Bitcoin just to buy 2 Papa John's pizzas back in 2010:
https://themoneymongers.com/first-bitcoin-transaction/
A single Bitcoin is currently valued at over $17,000 US. Those 10,000 Bitcoins today would net you over $170 million. Assuming that 2 extra large pizzas were ordered back in 2010 and going by today's prize of $17 each for a total of $34, that's an increase in value of around 500,000,000%. I think we can all agree that'd have been a whoppingly good 12 year investment.
For another example, we can turn to Ethereum. I'm not sure what Ethereum's first transaction was, but coinmarketcap shows its initial market value at a little under $3 back in August 2015. It actually fell initially, going as low as 54 cents in October 2015, before recuperating to its original value in February 2016. After that, it never went back to its original value. It's currently valued at over $1,200 US, or around a 40,000% increase in value. Not nearly as dramatic as the Bitcoin story, but still a very good investment if you got a large stash when it started out at under $3. Now, that doesn't mean that people haven't lost a lot of money in cryptos, and both Ethereum and Bitcoin have been worth a lot more than they currently are as well, with Bitcoin going as high as $67,000 US and Ethereum going as high as $4,700 US. As I said previously, I'd rather own my home then cryptos. But if that was taken care of, I'd much rather have certain cryptos then a large store of fiat currency. What's more, you'd be supporting a decentralized system, not fat cat corporate banks. The top cryptos such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have stood the test of time much better than regular currencies.
One thing I should probably mention- I currently own no cryptos. Not only do I not own the home I live in, I have debts, so I doubt I'll be getting any crypto in the foreseeable future.
