Jack Dorsey Launches Decentralized Bluetooth Messaging App Bitchat

Jack Dorsey, Block CEO and Twitter co-founder, launched his new messaging app Bitchat on the App Store this Monday. The platform allows users to send encrypted messages via Bluetooth, without the need for an internet connection.

Dorsey announced the release of the new app on the social media platform X—formerly Twitter—on a post with links to both the App Store download page and the app’s GitHub repository.

“Chat with people around you. Don’t need their phone # or email,” states the description of Bitchat Mesh on the App Store. “Uses Bluetooth mesh, no internet needed. Relays messages to go the distance! Encrypted private messages.”

Bitchat is compatible with iPhones— iOS 16.0 or later—Mac, and Apple Vision, and is currently available for free.

Computer scientist Andrej Karpathy—former Tesla and OpenAI engineer, and Eureka Labs founder—praised the app’s light weight in a comment. “Very interesting. Love that it’s 2MB – I tried to download a chess app yesterday and it was 400MB,” he wrote. Dorsey replied, saying that keeping the app small was one of the goals.

According to The Street, Bitchat was initially released in beta on July 7 and is now expanding to a broader user base. The app connects nearby devices by creating mesh networks using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

Bitchat uses Noise protocol for end‑to‑end encryption and doesn’t require usernames or phone numbers. Messages are sent directly between the devices and can reach distances of up to 3.2 kilometers. Messages are automatically deleted unless users activate the app’s store-and-forward function. Users can also create private group chats protected by a secret password.

Besides Twitter and now Bitchat, Dorsey has also contributed to other communication platforms such as Bluesky, a decentralized social media alternative to Twitter that has reached millions of users worldwide. However, Dorsey quit Bluesky’s board about a year ago.