Yes, that's exactly it. The shared, public, distributed block chain records every transaction that has ever taken place [1], so everyone knows and agrees on the

Yes, that's exactly it. The shared, public, distributed block chain records every transaction that has ever taken place [1], so everyone knows and agrees on the amounts that are associated with each address. As long as nobody knows what addresses you use, it's anonymous with respect to a real-world identity. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain