What is Bitchat? Twitter founder’s messaging app getting popular in Nepal unrest

Bitchat is currently experiencing a dramatic surge in popularity in Nepal, especially among the youth of the Himalayan nation, due to recent political unrest and government-imposed bans on mainstream social media platforms. 

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According to several reports, over 48,000 downloads of Bitchat were reported in Nepal in early September 2025 alone, which equals to a whopping 1,400% increase within days and making Nepal one of the fledgling app’s largest user bases globally.

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The spike in Bitchat usage in Nepal coincided with nationwide protests led by Gen Z against government corruption and heavy-handed censorship, during which the government blocked 26 major platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Instagram. According to reports, Gen Z and students form the core user base, adept at using Bitchat to coordinate protests and communicate privately during social media blackouts.

Who created Bitchat and when?

Bitchat was created by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and founder of Block (formerly Square), who first announced the app on July 6, 2025. According to his announcement post, Dorsey spent his weekend creating the Bitchat app, and published a white paper to his GitHub page detailing its decentralised architecture and encryption design.

The messaging app represents Dorsey’s latest venture into decentralized communication technology, following his previous work with Twitter and the Bluesky project.

Bitchat messaging app: What’s special?

Bitchat operates as a decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app with several distinctive features that set it apart from conventional messaging platforms like WhatsApp.

Also read: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s new app Bitchat lets you message without internet

Each device using Bitchat becomes a node in a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mesh, simultaneously acting as a sender, receiver, and relay. This is Bitchat’s core speciality. Messages sent and received via Bitchat are relayed in encrypted form from device to device, hopping across intermediate phones until they reach their destination.

Another unique aspect of Bitchat is that the app functions without mobile data, Wi-Fi, or even SIM cards, making it ideal for situations where internet connectivity is limited or cut off entirely.

All traffic is peer-to-peer with no storage requirement by Bitchat. The app doesn’t require accounts, phone numbers, or identifiers, enhancing privacy and censorship resistance. What’s more, Bitchat utilizes end-to-end encryption with X25519 for key exchange and AES-256-GCM for content encryption. It can also add cover traffic through dummy messages to resist traffic analysis.

Probably another reason why the app’s gaining traction in Nepal currently is because Bitchat includes a “panic mode” that immediately wipes all stored data and supports “store and forward” functionality, where messages are temporarily cached on relay devices and delivered when possible.

These are all the ways in which Bitchat differs from something like Whatsapp, for instance. Also where WhatsApp can reach users globally through internet infrastructure, Bitchat’s Bluetooth mesh limits range per hop to 30-100 metres only, though mesh relaying can extend total reach up to around 300 meters with sufficient nodes.

Why Bitchat is becoming popular in Nepal

Several factors have contributed to Bitchat’s explosive growth in Nepal, prime among which is the recent blocking of 26 major social media platforms during political protests in the country, which created an immediate need for alternative communication methods. Bitchat’s censorship-resistant design provided a crucial workaround.

The Bitchat app’s adoption has been driven primarily by Gen Z users coordinating protests and seeking secure communication channels away from government monitoring.

Another reason’s purely geographical in nature. Nepal’s mountainous terrain and patchy internet infrastructure make offline messaging (supported by Bitchat) particularly valuable. The app’s ability to function without internet connectivity addresses a persistent connectivity challenge in the region.

A key feature, which is the Bitchat app’s “panic mode” feature, which immediately wipes all stored data, has proven especially attractive in hostile or high-risk environments where protesters face potential government crackdowns.

Also read: Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat is now available on App Store: Here’s everything you need to know

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