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The app requires no phone number, email, or sign-up — making it fully anonymous and decentralized
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Tech Desk
Silicon Valley — Twitter (now X) co-founder Jack Dorsey is making headlines again — this time for launching BitChat, a revolutionary new messaging app that allows people to communicate without WiFi or mobile networks.
Unveiled as what Dorsey calls his “weekend project,” BitChat uses Bluetooth mesh networking to relay messages directly between nearby devices, hopping them along a network of phones until they reach their destination — all with end-to-end encryption and no central server.
“It worked within a day,” Dorsey shared on GitHub. “So I added private messages, channels, and private channels the next day.”
The app requires no phone number, email, or sign-up — making it fully anonymous and decentralized. Messages can hop device to device across a range of over 300 meters, and are stored-and-forwarded until they reach the intended recipient, even if that means traveling through multiple devices along the way.
BitChat’s design is inspired by apps like FireChat, which famously kept Hong Kong protesters connected during internet blackouts in the early 2010s. FireChat shut down in 2018, leaving a gap Dorsey says he wanted to fill — with a modern, more secure twist.
In addition to its offline capabilities, BitChat features self-destructing messages, private group “rooms,” and an upcoming WiFi mode for even longer-range, faster communication.
The project also showcases Dorsey’s experimentation with AI-driven coding. He confirmed he used Goose, Block’s AI coding assistant, to develop BitChat. “This was one part of a series of challenges I’ve given myself: To build something every day that I didn’t think I was capable of, and that I didn’t think the current set of AI tools were capable of,” Dorsey wrote. “I’m always surprised at how much just works.”
The initial beta maxed out its 10,000 TestFlight slots almost instantly. For now, BitChat is only available to testers on iOS and Android. Dorsey said App Store approval is pending until the app’s network optimization, noise protocol implementation, and Apple’s review process are complete.
Tech analysts say the app’s combination of peer-to-peer networking, strong encryption, and total anonymity could make it popular among activists, journalists, and communities facing internet shutdowns — or anyone who values secure, off-grid communication.
As Dorsey puts it: “There’s a new way of programming now. A new language, a new compiler: English and intelligence models.”
How it works:
With growing interest in decentralized and censorship-resistant communication, BitChat could be one of the boldest messaging experiments yet — and a signal of what the future of off-grid connectivity might look like.
Torch Media Africa
