The Roman empire ran on a fiat-like system where coins were valued higher than their metal contents, they did pretty well for a long time. The British empire used tally sticks for some 6 or 700 years, and did pretty well. The US...

Of course, there's a pretty imperialistic theme to go with those monetary systems, but you can't question their ability to produce. With a "math-based" cryptocurrency that ascribed to emulate fiat a bit more than bitcoin, there should be no reason to presume that the imperialism or fraud themes would continue anymore than they would in bitcoin, because governments and banks don't control it all the same. If you're worried about manipulation, clearly bitcoin and other closed systems are not immune.