The much talked about App by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Bitchat, presents a new experimental messaging application window that will operate entirely over Bluetooth mesh networks, without the need for the internet.
Bitchat is another step in Dorsey’s bid to push the tech frontier for decentralization. Having launched Bluesky, a somewhat Twitter rivalry earlier, Dorsey is concerned about privacy-preserving and censorship-resistant technologies for the future.
Dorsey has released Bitchat’s source code on Github already, allowing developers to hump on it and add to its improvement and diversification. The app is also live in beta format on TestFlight.
Why Is Bitchat Unique?
Bitchat is designed to act somewhat anonymous in that users are not required to create accounts nor profiles. Hence, meaning no personal identifiers or metadata are collected.
It also does not store messages on central servers, provides end-to-end encryption, allowing for optional group messaging via rooms. It also protects with passwords and is searchable using hashtags. Messages are stored locally on users’ devices and are meant to disappear by default. This supports the principles of ephemeral messaging and user-owned communication.
Future versions of Bitchat would enable Wifi Direct communications.
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