Twitter co-founder and current Block CEO Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer messaging app Bitchat has climbed to the number one spot in the Social Networking category of the App Store in France and also entered the top ten free apps in any category. The surge in downloads followed a nationwide cost-of-living mobilization on Saturday that saw looting and mass arrests, calls by former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal for temporary, targeted social media blocks, and a nearly ten-hour Orange mobile network outage on Wednesday.

Dorsey originally announced Bitchat on July 6th of last year as a weekend project to learn Bluetooth mesh networking, relays, store-and-forward models, and encryption. He described it as having “IRC vibes,” a reference to early internet messaging protocol Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

The app runs primarily over Bluetooth mesh networks so nearby phones can pass messages without internet, accounts, or phone numbers. Private messages use end-to-end encryption via the Noise Protocol Framework, and a public #mesh channel is readable by nearby users who have the app. Devices act as both clients and relays, and the theoretical multi-hop range sits around 300 meters, though denser crowds improve performance. On Android, the app itself can be shared peer-to-peer without an internet connection or app store required. When online, Bitchat can use the Nostr protocol for longer-range or geo-based channels.

Hundreds of thousands of people joined the October 17th national protests against the cost of living, with students and unions participating alongside others. Violence and looting also occurred at the margins, and there were reportedly more than 1,800 arrests made .

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