It's not generally recognised, but humanity has used a common currency for most of recorded history in the form of silver and, more latterly, gold. The advent of paper money and, more importantly, different traded currencies, has only a two to three hundred year history, but for most of that time a county's paper money was backed by a commodity like gold, so there was a link to something with intrinsic value.
A currency not backed by a commodity is called fiat currency and is dependent on a country's reputation. As such, if is at much greater risk of fluctuations and inflation. That's not to say commodity currency isn't at risk from debasement or clipping, or that a large find of gold, such as happened when the Spanish found huge stacks of gold in South America, cannot cause inflation, as it did in Spain.
A crypto currency, on the other hand, is not backed by any commodity or country, but by its users and the fact there's a finite limit to the amount of currency in circulation. However, even the word circulation is erroneous, as it's only the notion of the currency that circulates. Even the word currency is misleading, as it's more a security than a currency and a quasi-commodity. Even then, it's not totally immune to either inflation or deflation.
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