The 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 profits.

Let’s take a simple example. For the well-known Bitcoin Lightning Network, Jack launched the LDK development kit and even pushed Twitter to support the Lightning Network’s payment function.

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

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Humans can achieve the moon landing with a computer of tens of KB, but it takes hundreds of GB to host a public chain.

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

BlueSky is one example. Although it does not have much publicity like Farcaster, it is certain that this is not a work for issuing coins to make money, but an exploration of the next generation of social products for mankind.

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

From Bitcoin Lightning Network to Bluetooth Mesh, Jack Dorsey's 10-year journey to decentralization

 Image caption: Three generations of Bitchat Image source: @zuoyeweb3

• In 2019, based on Bitcoin's OP_RETURN opcode, @_unwriter created 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 sending messages on the Internet;

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

• In 2025, Jack Dorsey borrowed the ideas of the above two, hardware support + free usage 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 borrows the ideas of Bitcoin itself, but deviates from the idea that it must be done on the chain and moves 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 Satoshi Nakamoto's idea 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. But unfortunately, in the end, Bitcoin's value storage exceeds its actual function.

Jack Dorsey has obviously thought about this problem. The economic incentives must be compressed or even eliminated in order to promote their use by ordinary people and avoid the path of re-centralization and capitalization.

It should be mentioned here that Mesh can be used not only with Bluetooth networking, 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

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

From Bitcoin Lightning Network to Bluetooth Mesh, Jack Dorsey's 10-year journey to decentralization

 Image caption: Group security Image source: Bitchat technical white paper

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

• Offline: Bitchat stores and transmits messages entirely based on the local Bluetooth Mesh network, which means it can work without any network signal, which is also the ideal working environment for Bitchat;

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

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

• 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 the West.

In Bitchat's architecture, it can be divided into three parts: information transmission, privacy protection, and networking. The ultimate simplicity brings extreme focus. Information transmission emphasizes point-to-point and group modes. Privacy protection uses cryptography to ensure security. The networking function will be added to WIFI/LoRa/ultrasonic in the future, or to Nostr networking.

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

Bitchat also thoughtfully designed 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 bit complicated. Encryption modes are designed for individual and group modes. For example, the group mode uses Argon2id to resist potential side-channel attacks, but memory consumption will increase. The algorithm itself is more used for high-security customers such as finance and military industry, and it is somewhat redundant to use it for group protection.

However, this is an important lesson learned from Bitcoin. Something is better than nothing. It is difficult to evaluate subsequent performance before large-scale practical application.

Judging 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 means of communication.

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

Conclusion

What makes Crypto users most happy 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.

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