Elon Musk revealed plans to launch a new messaging app called “XChat” to rival WhatsApp and Telegram, as part of the Tesla billionaire’s broader push to turn X, formerly Twitter, into an “everything app.”
In a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Musk said the service will use “a peer-to-peer-based encryption system similar to Bitcoin,” and will be available both as a standalone app and as a built-in feature on X.
“On X, we just rebuilt the entire messaging stack into what’s called XChat, Musk said. “It’s using a kind of peer-to-peer-based encryption system, similar to Bitcoin. Very good encryption. We’re testing it thoroughly.”
The app will be “released in a few months,” Musk said, without specifying the date. He said XChat would have “no advertising hooks”, in a dig aimed at rival platforms, which he claims analyze user content for targeted marketing.
“WhatsApp knows enough about what you’re texting to know what ads to show you,” he alleged. “That’s a massive security vulnerability. Somebody can just use that same hook to get in there and look at your messages.”
The comments are the latest in Elon Musk’s often lofty rhetoric about growing the X ecosystem, which he has said will eventually include social networking, payments, and AI-driven services, just like WeChat in China.
“WhatsApp knows enough about what you’re texting to know what ads to show you,” he alleged. “That’s a massive security vulnerability. Somebody can just use that same hook to get in there and look at your messages.”
The comments are the latest in Elon Musk’s often lofty rhetoric about growing the X ecosystem, which he has said will eventually include social networking, payments, and AI-driven services, just like WeChat in China.
XChat: Branding or Privacy Breakthrough?
According to Moe Levin, Chief Marketing Officer at Hemi, an execution layer for Bitcoin (BTC), Musk’s description of Bitcoin-style encryption is vague, more branding than genuine cryptographic innovation.
“Bitcoin’s network uses peer-to-peer (P2P) connections and public-key cryptography for transaction validation,” Levin told Cryptonews. “For a messaging app, a P2P system could route messages through peers and encrypt them, allowing only the intended recipient to read them.”
But such a “comparison is loose,” Levin says, because “Bitcoin itself does not encrypt network traffic or protect message content.” He doubts that XChat can match the Bitcoin network’s technical capabilities.