Walked around Fusion Festival with Bitchat running. Saw about 20 other devices and a few messages. Nobody replied to my messages. So usage isn't zero, but 20 devices out of 80000 people isn't a lot. Most hops I saw was 2, meaning there wasn't enough density to make it any meaningful distance across the festival grounds.
People interested in BitChat should download it just so you have it in case it gets popular or you find someone to use it with. I tested it and it's surreal to text without WiFi or cellular.
Bluetooth chat apps already exist. I used a really shitty looking (but functional) one called Berkanan that I found by searching the App Store for a Bluetooth chat app to talk to friends on ryan air flights where we weren’t sitting together across Europe last year.
That Radicle site design is an interesting take for a git repo platform. Good use of full width spacing, well thought out navigation, nice code rendering. I dig it.
> Messages route through nearby devices (max 7 hops)
How far, realistically, could this reach using just iOS and Android devices? If each device can reach ~100m, that means you could theoretically reach somebody 700m (2.3k feet) away? Or would it be further if two devices are at the edge of their radio range?
People love pointing out the Streisand effect as though we’re still in the same social media dynamic that we were 30 or 15 years ago. Wake the fuck up.
Banning the app is 100% certainly going to reduce it all’s usage. The fact that you somehow think you could have the opposite effect is a sign that your head is buried so deep in the sand and you have no idea what the current state of the world is.
The authoritarians are winning and their censorship and propaganda has been exceptionally effective. Clinging to idealistic slogans and denying reality is a great way to accomplish nothing
For people who know what Bitchat and Radicle and GitHub and India are, though, and saw the Indian government threatened GitHub to remove Bitchat, this is news.
This is the cyberpunk future I was hoping we would get…and we got something completely different, some kind of centralized corpo dystopia. I’ve installed it!
I think radicle.dev is the software that lets you store issues and PRs inside a Git repo, and radicle.network is some kind of interface to people's hosts that run the Radicle software. Something like that?
I agree it's super confusing though and their explanation isn't exactly clear:
All social media is censored. If you think yours isnt, you're free to test that hypothesis by posting the N word over and over. I suspect you'll find that you get censored for doing so.
in case of old twitter, the blue checkmarks and their likeminded folx were allowed to hatespeak, "brigade", doxx, libel, call to violence, anything at all, as long as their infinite vitriol was directed at certain groups implicitly but obviously designated as unprotected. the other side, on the other hand, was subject to "private platforms can do whatever the fuck they want" kind of moderation, where even "off-platform conduct" could get you summarily banned.
Mesh networks don't scale beyond a few thousand nodes if the nodes move frequently. Nobody has found a way to make that work. You can push another order of magnitude if you give up on decentralisation.
It could be deliberate. Like Wechat's Chinese name is "Weixin", which is a pun on "for sex" in Mandarin (for which its "people nearby" feature originally saw heavy usage). As a decentralized social network, Bitchat might see similar usage.
Everything is pointing towards a hard "no", but I didn't dig deeper than literally read the first sentence in the README:
> A decentralized peer-to-peer messaging app with dual transport architecture: local Bluetooth mesh networks for offline communication and internet-based Nostr protocol for global reach. No accounts, no phone numbers, no central servers. It's the side-groupchat.
Walked around Fusion Festival with Bitchat running. Saw about 20 other devices and a few messages. Nobody replied to my messages. So usage isn't zero, but 20 devices out of 80000 people isn't a lot. Most hops I saw was 2, meaning there wasn't enough density to make it any meaningful distance across the festival grounds.
That's already a lot for such a niche project.
Many CCCers attend.
If they care so much about availability maybe they should reconsider including libs.gms.location and be available on F-Droid (https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/24907#...)
People interested in BitChat should download it just so you have it in case it gets popular or you find someone to use it with. I tested it and it's surreal to text without WiFi or cellular.
Bluetooth chat apps already exist. I used a really shitty looking (but functional) one called Berkanan that I found by searching the App Store for a Bluetooth chat app to talk to friends on ryan air flights where we weren’t sitting together across Europe last year.
I think FireChat was the first one, in 2011.
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That Radicle site design is an interesting take for a git repo platform. Good use of full width spacing, well thought out navigation, nice code rendering. I dig it.
That name
Tobias Bluth vibes
IKR? "Where's your Bitchat?" is a question better never uttered to anyone in person.
Bitchat is an AOS (https://andotherstuff.org/#foundry-projects) project. Surprised, they didn't rehost it on ngit (https://gitworkshop.dev/), which is also an AOS project.
> Messages route through nearby devices (max 7 hops)
How far, realistically, could this reach using just iOS and Android devices? If each device can reach ~100m, that means you could theoretically reach somebody 700m (2.3k feet) away? Or would it be further if two devices are at the edge of their radio range?
Had the same question then read the whitepaper (section 6).
https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/blob/main/WHIT...
For some context, it seems like the Indian government wants Bitchat to be taken down.
https://xcancel.com/jack/status/2080565084586135773
Discussed earlier on HN
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49036433
Surely this won't have the opposite effect that they're looking for.
It definitely won’t.
People love pointing out the Streisand effect as though we’re still in the same social media dynamic that we were 30 or 15 years ago. Wake the fuck up.
Banning the app is 100% certainly going to reduce it all’s usage. The fact that you somehow think you could have the opposite effect is a sign that your head is buried so deep in the sand and you have no idea what the current state of the world is.
The authoritarians are winning and their censorship and propaganda has been exceptionally effective. Clinging to idealistic slogans and denying reality is a great way to accomplish nothing
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Yo where's my
I can’t wait until Goblin is acquired by Nematode. Then finally they might make Gorbachev open source.
And I thought Poob already had it for you.
Too many proper nouns in titles.
For people who know what Bitchat and Radicle and GitHub and India are, though, and saw the Indian government threatened GitHub to remove Bitchat, this is news.
This is the cyberpunk future I was hoping we would get…and we got something completely different, some kind of centralized corpo dystopia. I’ve installed it!
I love these posts, every week it's "Gloop is now on Ploof!"
And at least one comment references "Curtains for Zoosha"
it's just two recent examples (Gleam on Tangled and now Bitchat on Radicle) and they're both the same format.
[Some well-liked but niche tech] switched their code forge to [a decentralized code forge].
Tbh I'm surprised how many on HN seem unfamiliar with Tangled and Radicle (and Bitchat and Gleam).
Here's some less popular posts in the past year that people didn't make Poob jokes about:
* Gemini is now on Mac
* OpenClaw is now on Android
* Instapaper is now on Kobo
* Gitzy is now on Testflight
* Webpack is now on Bluesky
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...
It's a basic step to make a plumbis
It's 2026, learn to flimble. A plumbis won't get far in today's economy.
Is it Jack Dorsey who moved the repo or someone else?
It seems like the core dev is behind this: https://x.com/callebtc/status/2080608602432082217
Are there any special features comparing with other decentrilized message product? Such as Nostr or XMTP？
Works over Bluetooth mesh offline and Nostr online.
Relevant discussion yesterday:
> “Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey”
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49036433
What a bunch of clickbaity nonsense.
Indian government*. They shut off internet access and order people to remove stuff all the time. Nobody pays any attention to them.
It's still up on Github. https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat
Yes, it's in the first paragraph of https://bitchat.free/.
I hope they will enjoy fighting with https://radicle.dev/ over the project name.
Radicle contributor here.
It's the same project. radicle.dev is for the protocol, radicle.network is for the network explorer.
Note that that radicle.network is a static site that you can also self host: https://radicle.network/nodes/rosa.radicle.network/rad:z4V1s...
I'm pretty sure that's the same project.
I assumed they are the same :-O
One seems to be built on top of the other? Very confusing though, I agree.
I found https://radicle.dev/2026/04/23/domain-move
It sounds like both are the same project, one is the “explorer” which is on a different domain so that censoring it doesn’t impact the main site
I think radicle.dev is the software that lets you store issues and PRs inside a Git repo, and radicle.network is some kind of interface to people's hosts that run the Radicle software. Something like that?
I agree it's super confusing though and their explanation isn't exactly clear:
https://radicle.network/principles
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In theory, this could work.
Setup machine with bluetooth receiver.
Funnel packets from Bluetooth receiver over a virtual private network (ie, wireguard, tailscale, netbird).
Then in another state/country/continent with server connected to vpn then rebroadcasts those packets over BLE.
A mesh network overlayed on top of another mesh network.
jack promoted censorship when he was in twitter, now he is playing the saint card.
All social media is censored. If you think yours isnt, you're free to test that hypothesis by posting the N word over and over. I suspect you'll find that you get censored for doing so.
in case of old twitter, the blue checkmarks and their likeminded folx were allowed to hatespeak, "brigade", doxx, libel, call to violence, anything at all, as long as their infinite vitriol was directed at certain groups implicitly but obviously designated as unprotected. the other side, on the other hand, was subject to "private platforms can do whatever the fuck they want" kind of moderation, where even "off-platform conduct" could get you summarily banned.
Dorsey's legacy is promoting cryptocurrency. Censorship is part-and-parcel with owning any social media.
I wouldn't worry about people going sweet on him anytime soon.
btw what's the current state of mesh wifi?
seems like after November or January 2029 might need it since administration now has a kill-switch so why wouldn't they use it
Mesh networks don't scale beyond a few thousand nodes if the nodes move frequently. Nobody has found a way to make that work. You can push another order of magnitude if you give up on decentralisation.
Such a terrible name. Can't believe marketing didn't catch it.
i have this pet theory that it was inspired by BitchX (they prominently mention being like IRC)
Probably on purpose. Like "Broken, But Whole"
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is the title of a video game, because it's South Park and they do that sort of thing.
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It could be deliberate. Like Wechat's Chinese name is "Weixin", which is a pun on "for sex" in Mandarin (for which its "people nearby" feature originally saw heavy usage). As a decentralized social network, Bitchat might see similar usage.
Maybe. I have bitchat installed and on in the rather large city. I have yet to see another person on :)
Is this bit-chat or bitch-at?
Yes :)
Find out on expertsexchange.com
Have you ever heard of the rather excellent Pen Island, vendors of fine pens? On my work computer, so you can plumb the internet archive for yourself.
Thanks, in a bit, I'm browsing therapistfinder.com right now.
Sounds like a suitable addition to the ATProto ecosystem :)
It's explicitly in opposition to ATProto. That's probably why they went with Radicle and not Tangled
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Or a misspelling of bitch hat
BitchX was already taken
Yep.
It depends on whom you’re talking to
> It depends on whom you're bitching at
FTFY
Is this irc compatible?
Everything is pointing towards a hard "no", but I didn't dig deeper than literally read the first sentence in the README:
> A decentralized peer-to-peer messaging app with dual transport architecture: local Bluetooth mesh networks for offline communication and internet-based Nostr protocol for global reach. No accounts, no phone numbers, no central servers. It's the side-groupchat.
How would it be? Bitchat is for offline communication over Bluetooth Low Energy networks
only if you make it so.
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