India orders takedown of Jack Dorsey’s bitcoin-linked messaging app Bitchat
The order targets Bitchat, an offline Bluetooth mesh app built to relay encrypted messages and bitcoin transactions, as ‘Cockroach Janta Party’ protesters in Delhi use mesh tools to communicate through internet shutdowns.
- India’s cybercrime agency has ordered GitHub to take down repositories for Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s offline messaging app, as Delhi protesters use mesh-network tools to evade repeated internet shutdowns.
- Authorities say Bitchat’s decentralized, registration-free design thwarts lawful interception and investigation, even as demonstrators rely on it and similar Bluetooth mesh apps to coordinate during exam scandal protests.
- It was unclear whether GitHub complied within the three-hour deadline, and the app remained available on major app stores Friday, with experts noting that open-source code is often mirrored beyond a single platform.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, part of the Home Ministry, issued the order late Thursday under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, naming three GitHub repositories tied to Bitchat and giving the platform three hours to disable access.
The notice, reviewed by CoinDesk, says the app enables anonymous communication without registration, phone numbers or centralized logging, and that its architecture “significantly impedes lawful interception, attribution, and investigation by law enforcement agencies.”
Bitchat is a decentralized messaging app that relays encrypted messages between phones over Bluetooth mesh networks, requiring no internet, servers or accounts. Dorsey released it as open-source software in July 2025.
Bitchat is built to relay bitcoin transactions offline, passing them phone to phone through the mesh until a device with connectivity broadcasts them to the network, a design meant to keep payments alive during blackouts, disasters or state-imposed shutdowns.
