Jack Dorsey launches a WhatsApp messaging rival built on Bluetooth

Jack Dorsey launches a WhatsApp messaging rival built on Bluetooth


Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies during a remote video hearing held by subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on “Social Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation” in Washington, March 25, 2021.

CNBC

Block CEO Jack Dorsey spent the weekend building Bitchat, a new decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app that works entirely over Bluetooth mesh networks, with no internet, central servers, phone numbers or emails required.

The Twitter co-founder announced Sunday that the beta version is live on TestFlight, with a full white paper available on GitHub.

In a post on X Sunday Dorsey called it a personal experiment in “bluetooth mesh networks, relays and store and forward models, message encryption models, and a few other things.”

Bitchat enables ephemeral, encrypted communication between nearby devices. As users move through physical space, their phones form local Bluetooth clusters and pass messages from device to device, allowing them to reach peers beyond standard range — even without WiFi or cell service.

Certain “bridge” devices connect overlapping clusters, expanding the mesh across greater distances. Messages are stored only on-device, disappear by default, and never touch centralized infrastructure — echoing Dorsey’s long-running push for privacy-preserving, censorship-resistant communication.

The launch builds on his support of Damus and Bluesky and reflects a broader push to decentralize everything from social media to payments.

Like the Bluetooth-based apps used during Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, Bitchat is designed to keep working even when the internet is blocked, offering a censorship-resistant way to stay connected during outages, shutdowns, or surveillance.

The app also supports optional group chats, or “rooms,” which can be named with hashtags and protected by passwords. It includes store-and-forward functionality to deliver messages to users who are temporarily offline.

A future update will add WiFi Direct to increase speed and range, pushing Dorsey’s vision for off-grid, user-owned communication even further.

Unlike mainstream messaging platforms like Meta‘s WhatsApp and Messenger, which are owned and built by big tech companies and rely on personal data, Bitchat operates entirely peer-to-peer with no accounts, no identifiers, and no data collection.

The rise of Bluesky



Source

Waymo to begin testing in Philadelphia with safety drivers behind the wheel
Technology

Waymo to begin testing in Philadelphia with safety drivers behind the wheel

A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar electric vehicle sits parked at an EVgo charging station in Los Angeles, California, on May 15, 2024. Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images Waymo said it will begin testing in Philadelphia, with a limited fleet of vehicles and human safety drivers behind the wheel. “This city is a […]

Read More
CoreWeave to acquire Core Scientific in  billion all-stock deal
Technology

CoreWeave to acquire Core Scientific in $9 billion all-stock deal

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator, left, testifies before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in Washington on May 8, 2025. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images Artificial intelligence-oriented cloud infrastructure company CoreWeave said Monday it will acquire Core Scientific, a data center infrastructure provider, in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $9 billion. CoreWeave stock […]

Read More
Trump advisor Navarro rips Apple’s Tim Cook for not moving production out of China fast enough
Technology

Trump advisor Navarro rips Apple’s Tim Cook for not moving production out of China fast enough

White House trade advisor Peter Navarro chastised Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday over the company’s response to pressure from the Trump administration to make more of its products outside of China. “Going back to the first Trump term, Tim Cook has continually asked for more time in order to move his factories out of […]

Read More