Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat app gains traction amid social media ban in Nepal

Jack Dorsey’s app Bitchat saw an increase in downloads in Nepal in the wake of nationwide ￰0￱ spike in downloads came as the Nepali government banned access to major social media ￰1￱ erupted in Kathmandu on September 4 after the Nepali government blocked access to 26 major social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, and ￰2￱ Nepalis under the Gen Z age group initiated protests in retaliation for the government’s ￰3￱ protestors resort to Bitchat Last week, we observed a sudden spike in bitchat downloads from Indonesia during nationwide ￰4￱ we're seeing an even bigger spike from Nepal during youth protests over government corruption and a social media ￰5￱ tech is for the ￰6￱ ￰7￱ — calle (@callebtc) September 10, 2025 The protests further escalated on September 9 after demonstrators stormed and set fire to key government buildings, including the ￰8￱ the chaos, protestors turned to the Bitchat app, which uses Bluetooth meshes and the Nostr protocol, and works without an Internet ￰9￱ application also emulates Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer ￰10￱ introduced the app on July 7 as a weekend project, saying it offers a resilient alternative by operating without central ￰11￱ also revealed that the application is designed for scenarios where internet connectivity is unavailable, such as ￰12￱ to the Bitchat Protocol Whitepaper, the app’s communication is limited to third parties, and messages cannot be tampered with in ￰13￱ paper revealed that Bitchat makes it cryptographically impossible for anyone to prove that a specific user sent a particular ￰14￱ application can also function reliably in low-bandwidth ￰15￱ founder of X and Cash App developed the app’s iOS version, while the Android version was built by a pseudonymous open-source developer, ￰16￱ expanded the app’s capabilities to operate without requiring names, phone numbers, servers, or even an Internet ￰17￱ the social media ban, users recommended Bitchat across platforms like ￰18￱ user noted that Bitchat was circulating online as an alternative to the country’s internet ￰19￱ operates independently of traditional Internet infrastructure Calle revealed that Bitchat saw more than 48,000 downloads at the height of the protests on September ￰20￱ to him, the downloads represent more than 38% of the app’s total installs to that date.

“Last week, we observed a sudden spike in Bitchat downloads from Indonesia during nationwide ￰21￱ we’re seeing an even bigger spike from Nepal during youth protests over government corruption and a social media ￰22￱ tech is for the people.” – Calle , Open-Source Bitchat Developer The tech developer argued at the time that, in the worst case, Bitchat could be the only communication method still available in the ￰23￱ cited the app’s ability to operate independently of traditional Internet ￰24￱ said that Bitchat differs from mainstream chat platforms that depend on servers or centralized networks since it uses a hyper-local Bluetooth mesh approach that’s crucial when such services are either blocked or ￰25￱ also compared the app to Bitcoin because it is built for censorship resistance and ￰26￱ developer noted that tools that bypass centralized controls become invaluable during political unrest or financial ￰27￱ acknowledged that Bitchat enables communication in much the same way, saying that it’s useful even when governments try to restrict or monitor digital ￰28￱ also confirmed that the app was not yet in its final ￰29￱ explained that the recent use cases in Indonesia and Nepal have pushed the team to work on adding financial capabilities through Bitcoin and ￰30￱ developer said the goal is to use Bitchat’s infrastructure and functionality to enable private financial exchanges and even support ￰31￱ revealed that another goal is to iterate Bitcoin through Cashu, an open-source Chaumian Ecash protocol for ￰32￱ allows users to send and receive BTC payments in various ways, and even an emoji could carry an embedded amount of ￰33￱ smartest crypto minds already read our ￰34￱ in?

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