Hello roatanbill,
I agree with you that fiat money is created from thin air, but...
Did you know that you have to spend about 20,000kWh of electricty to create one bitcoin? That is not thin air.
The total bicoin creation will reach 21 million in year 2140, that has nothing to do with the exponential growth of some tulip bulbs, in fact it is the opposite: the bitcoin creation rate has been set to exponentially decrease to zero. It has already been divided by a 4 factor since jan 3rd 2009.
The real problem for bankers and central bankers is that cryptos are doing their job, bringing trust between a two parties transaction without the ability of fraud.
I gave a conference two weeks ago in a business school with a HSBC guy, he told me that in his bank every one is aware of the coming crypto transition, they think that it will change our society far more than did the web.