Something that helps you tell that Bitcoin itself is not a scam is that it's fully open. Anyone can analyse how it works. So while we can politely disagree about whether Bitcoin has the right approach, we can't say that it is scamming anyone.

It's the "but what if it's not a scam!?" reaction that they're trying to exploit, and that coupled with the secrecy tells you that it is a scam. They've been trying to invite people to these closed stage-managed demonstrations for years.