Former Twitter (now X) CEO Jack Dorsey has unveiled BitChat, a messaging app that enables users to send encrypted conversations without internet connectivity.
Dorsey posted on X on Sunday to announce the app, which is currently in its early phases.
Message encryption, decentralized communication, and Bluetooth mesh networking were all explored in this personal project, he explained.
“I spent the weekend learning about relays, message encryption models, store and forward models, Bluetooth mesh networks, and a few other things,” he wrote.
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GitHub has released the app’s source code and white paper, and iOS users may now access a beta version of the app through TestFlight.
HOW IT OCCURS
As to Dorsey’s public documentation, BitChat employs a store-and-forward architecture in which messages are transmitted from one Bluetooth-enabled device to another until they are delivered to the proper receiver.
According to the document, the app has end-to-end encryption capabilities, and messages are encrypted with Curve25519 public keys and verified using the Noise Protocol Framework (NPF).
Its simple design was influenced by the text-based internet relay chat (IRC) system that was popular in the early days of the internet.
Dorsey has always been interested in decentralized technology, and BitChat fits that bill.
Before departing the board of Bluesky, a decentralized social networking platform, in May 2024, the American businessman had also supported the app.
After leaving his position as CEO of Twitter in 2021, he has since concentrated on digital payments and Bitcoin infrastructure through his business, Block, Inc. (previously Square).
