DePIN Renaissance, Bitchat is back

Real Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is a more determined cypherpunk spokesperson than Coinbase founder Armstrong. His investment in Bitcoin has lasted for at least 10 years, even when his investment was greater than his profit.

We can give a simple example. For the well-known Bitcoin Lightning Network, Jack launched the LDK development kit and even pushed Twitter to support the payment function of the Lightning Network.

Not only that, he pays attention to everything about Bitcoin, so after re-launching Bitchat, he also plans to support the Nostr networking function in the future to support freedom of speech from the physical layer.

Three rebirths, rethinking Bitcoin

Humans can use computers with tens of KB to achieve the moon landing, but hundreds of GB are needed to host the public chain.

Jack Dorsey is one of the co-founders of Twitter. Although financial products such as Cash App continued to succeed in his subsequent entrepreneurship, he has never forgotten the freer social and more decentralized networking methods.

BlueSky is one example. Although it does not have much voice like Farcaster, it can be confirmed that this is not a work for the purpose of issuing coins to make money, but an exploration of the next generation of social products for humans.

So, Bitchat is here. Interestingly, Bitchat was also the name of two on-chain social products before. I think there is some tribute to Jack Dorsey in it.

• In 2019, based on Bitcoin's OP_RETURN opcode, @_unwriter made the first free Bitcoin on-chain social tool Bitchat, which is actually the same as the inscription method, writing information into the transaction notes, which is equivalent to freeloading on the Internet to send messages;

•  In 2022, based on the cheapness of BSV, TonicPow CEO Luke Rohenaz launched a real on-chain social product Bitchat, which uses on-chain channels to send messages and is paid for use;

• In 2025, Jack Dorsey borrowed the ideas of the above two, hardware support + free use model, and launched Bitchat based on the local Bluetooth Mesh network, which can run completely offline, completely decentralized and censorship-resistant.

It is not difficult to find that the 2025 Bitchat borrowed the ideas of Bitcoin itself, but broke away from the idea that it must be done on the chain, and moved towards a scenario that is more suitable for ordinary people. You may not have a Bitcoin mining machine, after all, it is involved in the mining pool, but you must have a Bluetooth device.

This is consistent with the idea of ​​Satoshi Nakamoto when he created Bitcoin. According to Moore's Law, chips and storage devices will become cheaper and cheaper until everyone can participate in the operation of the Bitcoin network. Unfortunately, in the end, the value storage of Bitcoin exceeds its actual function.

Jack Dorsey obviously thought about this problem. It is necessary to compress it or even eliminate the economic incentive factors to promote the use of ordinary people and avoid the path of centralization and capitalization again.

It should be mentioned here that Mesh can be networked not only with Bluetooth, but also with WIFI. In essence, Mesh is the "organization method" of the network, while Bluetooth, WIFI and even Starlink are all "transmission methods" of the network. Starlink Mesh can even be established in theory.

Offline group chat first, maybe online in the future

Another way to live after financial freedom.

After reading the documents and code carefully, I feel that there are strong traces of Vibe Coding, but that's good, it reduces development and deployment costs, and also facilitates secondary development and improvement.

First of all, Bitchat is an offline, anonymous, free, IRC-type social tool. It is basically impossible to develop into a cryptocurrency project or go the route of financing. Therefore, it is extremely pure, or it is unlikely to be as popular as Clubhouse and as long-lasting as Douyin.

•  Offline: Bitchat is completely based on local Bluetooth Mesh network storage and message transmission, that is, it can work without any network signal, which is also the most ideal working environment for Bitchat;

• •Anonymous: Bitchat is extremely lightweight and does not have cloud storage network at all. Mesh devices are stored online, so there is no permanent account system and data persistence storage system. However, the disadvantage is that it can only be used as a chat room, and basically say goodbye to emoticons and audio and video;

• •Free: Purchasing Bluetooth Mesh hardware is the only expense, but in this era, everyone has a mobile phone in their hands. It can be said that Bitchat only needs to use existing devices without any paid functions;

•  IRC: Returning to the group chat mode of the Web 1.0 era, the interfaces of the three generations of Bitchat are basically the same. Americans still like podcasts, Reddit, email and other tools very much, which can be regarded as a difference between China and foreign countries.

In the architecture of Bitchat, it can be classified into three major parts: information transmission, privacy protection, and networking functions. The extreme simplicity brings extreme focus. Information transmission emphasizes point-to-point and group modes. Privacy protection uses cryptography to ensure security. The networking function is left for the subsequent addition of WIFI/LoRa/ultrasound, or the addition of Nostr networking.

In terms of information transmission, Bitchat's information transmission is essentially suitable for point-to-point mode. Although it supports multi-point jump or bridge information, the efficiency will be greatly reduced. The ideal Bluetooth Mesh is only used within 30 meters.

Bitchat also considerately designs a group chat function, but it requires a more powerful Bluetooth Mesh device. You can refer to Xiaomi's similar products. The price of Bluetooth Mesh components that support multiple devices is more than 200 RMB, which determines that the group function will not be the focus of Bitchat.

However, in terms of privacy protection, Bitchat is still a little complicated. The encryption mode is designed for individuals and group modes. For example, the group mode uses Argon2id to resist potential side channel attacks, but the memory consumption will increase. The algorithm itself is more used for high-security customers such as finance and military industry. It is redundant to use it for group protection.

However, this is an important lesson learned from Bitcoin. It is better to have it than not. It is difficult to evaluate the subsequent performance before large-scale practical application.

From the current progress, Bitchat is still in the experimental stage, and its style may not be accepted by users of this era, but it is full of creativity. Jack Dorsey also believes that in extreme scenarios such as disaster relief in the future, relying on ultrasound, LoRa, and even WIFI networking can become a backup communication method.

This is still reliable. A mobile phone without network is just a brick, but Bitchat turns a brick into a text walkie-talkie.

Conclusion

What makes Crypto users happy the most may not be Bitchat's retro chat room style, but the possibility of connecting with Nostr. In Jack's vision, Mesh local networking + Nostr global networking will create a real, hardware-based, censorship-resistant social tool.

Maybe we don't believe it, but someone has to try.