It is radically open. Not only is there open source software to run it, the transactions are visible to all but the identities are nominally opaque. With open transactions cluster analysis quickly identifies players, even if not by their real name. Their bitcoin identity may be more relevant, however, than what is on their birth certificate.
Links: Wikipedia, The Economist (remarkably technical!), Brian Warner’s slides
Bitcoin is valuable to study even if the economics are flawed. Is it immune from legislation?? We talked at the end of possibilities of what I would call ‘speciation of currencies’. Currencies have competed in the past. It is a curiously recursive and indeed circular design; the whole must be seen before any part is justified. A presentation, such as yours, thus must thus impose mysteries on the audience until near the end. Someone suggested a list of problems yet to be solved. I would think, perhaps, a growing and shrinking heap of problems to be solved, especially in the context of a written version.
Bitcoin: The Economist;
NY Times;
arstechnica:
Whenever you spend a Bitcoin, you cryptographically sign a statement saying that you have transferred the coin to a new owner and you identify the new owner by their public crypto key.