The OP mentions the Bank note in England during the 16th century. Um, the Chinese introduced the concept much much earlier during the 7th century. Ref the
Wikipedia article on Fiat Money.
Time and time again in that article it mentions things such as
One justification for fiat money comes from a micro-founded model. In most economic models, agents are intrinsically happier when they have more money. In a model by Lagos and Wright, fiat money doesn't have an intrinsic worth but agents get more of the goods they want when they trade assuming fiat money is valuable. Fiat money's value is created internally by the community and, at equilibrium, makes otherwise infeasible trades possible.
Note that last sentence, "Fiat money's
value is created internally by the community and, at equilibrium, makes otherwise infeasible trades possible". To me that sure sounds exactly the same as what gives crypto value. In other words, Bitcoin and all the other crypto coins
technically ARE Fiat!