Jack’s Latest Side Quest

Jack Dorsey has the career trajectory of a chaotic neutral wizard. He created Twitter — the bird site that turned politicians into meme fodder. He wandered away, returned with Bluesky (Twitter, but wearing a hipster cardigan), and now, apparently in a fit of boredom, has launched Bitchat. This isn’t just another social platform. No, this is Jack going full feral. Bitchat doesn’t care about your internet connection, your SIM card, or your phone number. It doesn’t even want to know who you are. It’s like a secret agent who refuses to carry ID.

What the Hell is Bitchat?

Bitchat is a Bluetooth mesh messaging app — which is just a geeky way of saying it turns your phone into a digital gossip pigeon. You send a message, it hops from phone to phone, whispering along the chain until it reaches its destination. No cloud. No servers. No “Your data is important to us” lies. Just raw, device-to-device packet swapping. Built in two days using Block’s in-house AI coding tool “Goose” (because apparently we’re naming dev tools after farm animals now), it’s a love letter to privacy geeks and a middle finger to telecom monopolies.

How It Works — Bluetooth Witchcraft 101

When you open Bitchat, there’s no sign-up, no verification, no “sync your contacts” screen designed to harvest your cousin’s baby photos. You get a random username — mine was “@anon4681” which sounds like the main villain from a 2008 Xbox Live lobby — and you’re in.

From there, it’s all Bluetooth mesh networking magic. If your friend is nearby, your phone talks directly to theirs. If not, your message bounces through any other phones running Bitchat like a drunk courier hopping taxis. The direct range is about 100 metres, but in a crowd it can stretch to 300. Everything is end-to-end encrypted with Curve25519 and AES‑GCM, which is basically the cryptographic equivalent of wearing an invisibility cloak lined with tinfoil. And if things get spicy, triple-tapping the app’s logo instantly nukes your chats in “panic mode.”

Who Actually Needs This?

This is not the app you use to tell your coworker you’re running late. This is the app you use when the networks are down, the internet’s gone, and the only other option is shouting. At a protest where the signal mysteriously “vanishes”? Works. Camping somewhere the nearest cell tower is two time zones away? Works. Music festival where the data network is as dead as your dignity? Works. But outside those situations, it’s more “cool emergency gadget” than “daily driver.”

The Rough Edges

Let’s get real: Bitchat is not perfect. Android users have to sideload it from GitHub, which is basically like telling someone to assemble IKEA furniture without the manual. Even if you get it running on both platforms, iOS and Android can’t talk to each other yet — they’re like feuding cousins at a wedding. There’s a bug that lets someone impersonate your username, which is mildly terrifying if you’re using this for sensitive communications. And don’t even think about leaving mesh mode running all day unless you like your battery dying faster than a Chrome laptop at a coding bootcamp.

Testing in the Wild

I tested Bitchat in a packed Beirut café while sipping overpriced cold brew. Within seconds, I saw four random user pop up: @anon5300. A message I sent hopped one device before arriving, which was weirdly satisfying — like watching a spy pass a note down a hallway. But the moment I walked a block away, the network collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane. It’s brilliant in a dense crowd. In a ghost town? You’re just talking to yourself.

The Geek Verdict

Bitchat is pure Jack Dorsey energy: niche, clever, a bit rough, and absolutely unnecessary until the exact moment it becomes priceless. It’s not trying to be WhatsApp, Signal, or your grandma’s “Good Morning” sticker spam app. It’s here for the day the lights go out, the internet dies, and you need to find your friends without being tracked.

If I had to score it? Nine out of ten for concept, six for execution, five for battery friendliness, and a full ten for the fact that my grandma will never touch it. And honestly, that’s exactly how Jack wants it.