The Problem with Modern Messaging
Current messaging apps fall into two categories: Centralized platforms (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord) give you convenience at the cost of sovereignty. Your messages live on someone else’s servers. Your account can be suspended. Your data can be subpoenaed, sold, or leaked. “Decentralized” solutions often aren’t truly decentralized—they just move the centralization to a blockchain or require running complex infrastructure that only technical users can manage. Both approaches miss something fundamental: your identity should be cryptographic, not corporate.A Different Approach
What if your messaging identity was simply an Ed25519 public key? What if finding your message server was as simple as a DNS lookup? What if anyone could run a node with minimal setup? This is the architecture we’re building:Cryptographic Identity
Your address is your Ed25519 public key. No usernames, no phone numbers, no corporate identity verification. Just pure cryptography. Control the private key, control the identity. Lose the key, lose everything. It’s that simple.Algorithmic Server Discovery
When someone wants to message you, they perform an algorithmic DNS lookup on your public key to find your server. Think of it like email’s MX records, but computed rather than configured. You can override this to point to your own server, or let the algorithm distribute load across public nodes.Ephemeral Storage
Servers store messages only until delivery—never longer than 7 days. No permanent databases of your conversations. No data mining your chat history. Messages are delivered and deleted, like the post office was supposed to work.User-Controlled Sync
When you add a new device, your existing devices get a notification: “New device wants your message history. Share it?” You decide what to sync and when. No corporate cloud needed.Beyond Chat: Unified Crypto Identity
But here’s where it gets interesting. That same mnemonic phrase that generates your chat identity can also:- Generate Solana wallet addresses for seamless in-chat payments
- Create multiple personas by combining your seed with different PIN codes
- Serve as your identity across other crypto-native applications
The Email Parallel
This architecture should feel familiar—it’s how email worked from the beginning:- Federated servers that anyone can run
- DNS-based routing to find the right server
- Store-and-forward message delivery
- No central authority controlling the network
Reasonable Security for Real Devices
We’re not building a messenger for hypothetical privacy purists with airgapped devices. This is for real people using normal phones with Google Services, Apple Intelligence, social media apps, and closed-source components. Our threat model is honest: we protect against corporate surveillance and casual deanonymization, but we can’t save you from a fully compromised device. Reasonable privacy in an unreasonable world.Open Source, Open Network
The server code is fully open source. Anyone can audit the cryptography, run their own node, or build compatible clients. The network grows stronger with each new server, not weaker. This isn’t about building another messaging company. It’s about rebuilding messaging infrastructure the way the internet was meant to work: federated, cryptographic, and user-controlled.The Vision
Imagine a world where:- Your messaging identity belongs to you, not a corporation
- You can tip your friends instantly without leaving the chat
- You can maintain separate identities for different contexts
- Your server can’t read your messages even if it wanted to
- No single entity can shut down the network
- Privacy is the default, not a premium feature
The future of messaging is federated, cryptographic, and user-sovereign. Just like the internet was supposed to be.