Surely paper money has 'production' as well by that logic. Printing, distributing it and preventing counterfeiting all count as 'production' for paper money. I

Surely paper money has 'production' as well by that logic. Printing, distributing it and preventing counterfeiting all count as 'production' for paper money. I think you're essentially comparing fiat currencies guaranteed by governments with the fixed supply of Bitcoin that isn't guaranteed to be stable. That doesn't mean it's not a currency, just an unstable one with fixed supply.