Jack Dorsey’s New Private Messenger App Doesn’t Need an Internet Connection

What has Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter (now X) been up to lately? Among other things, creating experimental little projects, like a new private messenger that doesn’t need the internet to function.

On Sunday, Dorsey announced the beta launch of a new messaging app that he says relies on mesh networks to pass messages from user to user via the power of Bluetooth technology. The service sounds vaguely like Amazon’s Sidewalk project (which similarly used mesh networks to power IoT devices), and which we advised against using back in 2020. According to Dorsey, his messenger—called Bitchat—allows for decentralized, private communication, in such a way that does not require internet infrastructure.

In a white paper he published to his Github page, Dorsey explained a little bit about how Bitchat is supposed to work: “bitchat addresses the need for resilient, private communication that doesn’t depend on centralized infrastructure,” the page says. “By leveraging Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networking, bitchat enables direct peer-to-peer messaging within physical proximity, with automatic message relay extending the effective range beyond direct Bluetooth connections.”

Dorsey’s thing has always been decentralization. That’s part of the reason that he helped launch Bluesky, the decentralized-ish microblogging alternative to X that started as a Twitter side project. Some quibble over whether Bluesky is a decentralized project on the same level as other Fediverse sites, though it’s certainly much more so than Elon Musk’s monstrosity.

Mesh networks work by pooling power and digital resources between devices as a sort of bandwidth-sharing arrangement. In this case, a peer-to-peer messaging system relays messages along from device to device, while keeping the communications encrypted. Dorsey claims the service is private because it requires no “phone numbers, emails, or permanent identifiers” to function—which sounds pretty good. Dorsey also claims the messenger offers end-to-end encryption, which is what you want. The app’s lack of reliance on internet infrastructure is intended to make it “resilient to network outages and censorship,” which also sounds good on paper. At the same time, because the project is so new, it’s still unclear just how technically sound all of Dorsey’s claims are.

For now, Bitchat is a lot like Bluesky was when it started: a weird little experiment that seems promising but hasn’t proven itself yet. Jack doesn’t always seem to be super interested in taking a consistent executive role (some claimed that he wasn’t all that involved in day-to-day operations at Twitter), and seems content to start new projects and not really follow through with them (he notably bowed out of Bluesky just as it was taking off as an organization). That said, Bitchat, like Bluesky, certainly provides the opportunity for Dorsey and other like-minded individuals to take off running in a new direction, which is never a bad thing.