No Internet? No Problem. Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat Reinvents Messaging For The Offline World
Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat app enables encrypted, offline messaging via Bluetooth mesh, ideal for network outages.
Jack Dorsey, best known for co-founding Twitter (now known as X), is back at it. Although this time, he’s aiming way off the beaten path. His latest brainchild? Bitchat, a messaging app that works completely offline, relying solely on Bluetooth mesh networking. That means no internet, no phone numbers, and no servers. Just devices passing messages directly to each other.
Why Bitchat?
Imagine being at a festival, in a disaster zone, or in a protest where mobile networks are jammed or shut down. That’s exactly where Bitchat shines. You and anyone else with the app form a web of connected devices, each relaying encrypted, short-lived messages across Bluetooth hops. When you walk out of range and meet someone else, it bridges the clusters, extending the message network organically. Early tests show messages could travel up to around 300 meters thanks to this mesh structure.
How Bitchat Works
Dorsey released a lightweight “white paper” on GitHub and opened up access via Apple’s TestFlight beta. All 10,000 available slots disappeared almost instantly. In his announcement on X, he humbly described it as a “weekend project” to experiment with “Bluetooth mesh networks, relays and store and forward models, message encryption models”.
my weekend project to learn about bluetooth mesh networks, relays and store and forward models, message encryption models, and a few other things.
— jack (@jack) July 6, 2025
bitchat: bluetooth mesh chat...IRC vibes.
TestFlight: https://t.co/P5zRRX0TB3
GitHub: https://t.co/Yphb3Izm0P pic.twitter.com/yxZxiMfMH2
Messages vanish from your device after a set time, and everything is end-to-end encrypted. Plus, there’s no need to register or share personal info; just fire up the app, choose your chat group, and go. Group chats are supported, even with password protection and delayed delivery (the “store and forward” feature).
Why It Matters
This is classic Dorsey: pushing back against centralised platforms in the name of personal control and decentralisation. He’s turned away from the typical cloud-and-data-centre model that apps like WhatsApp and Messenger rely on. Instead, Bitchat emphasises ephemeral, hardware-based communication with no digital trail, which is perfect for privacy-first users or those in disrupted network zones.
It’s certainly still a niche experiment, not a global consumer-facing product. But it continues Dorsey’s ongoing exploration into decentralised communication.
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