Bitchat | Crypto

Downloads for decentralized messaging app Bitchat has surged in Jamaica as 185-mile-per-hour winds batter the Caribbean, cutting off communication. Jamaicans have rushed to download Jack Dorsey’s decentralized peer-to-peer messaging app Bitchat as the fatal Hurricane Melissa continues to rip through the Caribbean. Bitchat — which uses Bluetooth mesh networks for internet-free, encrypted communication — is now the second-most downloaded app on the Apple App Store and Google Play in Jamaica, offering a lifeline for 2.8 million people as internet coverage continues to falter in the region.  Bitchat only trails weather forecast platform Zoom Earth — indicating that two of Jamaican’s most basic needs right now are to know what the weather is, and to communicate with one another. Read more

Block CEO Jack Dorsey has released a white paper and launched a beta for Bitchat, a decentralized messaging app using Bluetooth mesh networks for internet-free, encrypted communication. Block CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has launched the beta version of a new decentralized peer-to-peer messaging service that runs entirely over Bluetooth.  Jack Dorsey said his weekend was spent learning about “Bluetooth mesh networks, relays, store and forward models, message encryption models, and a few other things” as he introduced Bitchat on X on Sunday.  The “Bluetooth mesh chat” system has “IRC [Internet Relay Chat] vibes,” Dorsey added, harking back to the early days of web-based messaging systems in the late 1990s.  Read more