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.
Why the Surge in France
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.
On October 19th, Attal, the former prime minister and current presidential candidate, told RTL radio that the government should be able to impose temporary, targeted social media blocks in areas experiencing riots. He also described a “herd effect” in which young people see friends looting online and then join in and referenced his 2024 decision to block TikTok in New Caledonia, which France’s highest administrative court later ruled a disproportionate infringement of rights and freedoms.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has also highlighted the role of social networks in the violence, telling the French Senate that “social networks have become a real problem.” He acknowledged that suspending platforms used to coordinate looting was a possibility, but stressed that any such measure would be subject to the strict conditions established by the Conseil d’État.
On top of that, Orange and Sosh mobile service was largely unusable from roughly 11:20 a.m. until about 9 p.m. on October 21st. Coverage in French outlets described it as the third national mobile outage of the year for the operator, and it had the potential to affect millions of customers.
In addition to topping France’s App Store Social Networking chart, pseudonymous Bitchat contributor Calle posted that the French geohash channel on the app had become so active it was causing performance issues.
french bitchat geohash channel is so active, it causes performance issues.
working on a fix!
— calle (@callebtc) October 22, 2026
The prospect of internet outages or restrictions on online activities can drive downloads of apps like Bitchat before anything actually happens. This is because users may anticipate that accessing such apps could become more difficult if internet access becomes unavailable or heavily restricted. The combination of political debate over social media blocks and a multi-hour mobile network outage appears to have driven a surge in preemptive installs of a tool that does not necessarily rely on traditional infrastructure.
Previous Bitchat Download Spikes
Since its initial creation by Dorsey last year, Bitchat downloads have repeatedly spiked in places facing internet restrictions or protests. Earlier this year, Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine urged people to download the app ahead of elections amid shutdown worries; hundreds of thousands of Android installs followed, amounting to roughly 1% of the population in a short window. Bitchat usage also rose in Iran during January unrest and internet restrictions, along with increased withdrawals from Iranian crypto exchanges to non-custodial wallets on the Bitcoin network. Other examples of increased interest in Bitchat were seen in Nepal during a 2025 social media crackdown and the unrest that followed, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica.
Of course, some governments have also implemented restrictions on Bitchat’s availability. Apple pulled it from the Chinese App Store this spring at the request of the Cyberspace Administration. More recently, India demanded its removal from the App Store and Google Play after a summer spike in activity during protests. In both situations, Apple stated that apps must comply with all legal requirements in any jurisdiction where they are made available.
government of India officially removes bitchat from the App Store pic.twitter.com/9oHHiwquec
— jack (@jack) October 3, 2026
Legal barriers in France, including the aforementioned New Caledonia ruling and the EU’s Digital Services Act provisions, would appear to make broad blocks harder to sustain than in more authoritarian settings. That said, Bitchat’s move up the app charts in France shows how quickly decentralized, open-source alternatives to traditional platforms can draw attention when there’s even a hint that existing infrastructure could become unreliable.
