On Monday, September 8, 2025, Nepalese youth started protesting on the streets of Kathmandu in response to the Nepali government’s banning 26 major social media platforms on Thursday, September 4, 2025.
On the peak of the protests, the Nepalese protestors started downloading Bitchat, a brand new app created and developed by Twitter/X and Block founder Jack Dorsey and open-source developer Calle.
The app, a censorship-resistant messaging app that harnesses Bluetooth mesh know-how in addition to the Nostr protocol and that doesn’t even require an web connection to make use of, was downloaded virtually 49,000 instances on September 8 in Nepal, based on knowledge shared by Calle on X.
Bitchat allowed the protestors to permissionlessly talk with each other as they ousted the country’s prime minister (and burned down the country’s parliament building).
The Lesson for Nepali Youth
The lesson right here is that apps like Bitchat should not solely necessary instruments to make use of within the wake of the blackout of centralized communications companies and through protests, however that they’re instrumental in preserving rights that underpin free and open societies.
In our fashionable digital world, we should protect the liberty to not solely talk on-line but in addition to transact within the digital house.
A instrument like Bitchat, which at the moment allows the previous, must also quickly allow the latter, based on reporting from Forbes, which cited Calle, who voiced his objective of enabling Bitcoin-based Ecash transactions through Bitchat within the close to future.
By embracing instruments like Bitchat, Bitcoin, Ecash, and Nostr — freedom tech staples — the Nepali youth may help to forestall the kind of abuse of energy that they only protested in opposition to.
For instance, Nostr and the assorted social media purchasers constructed on prime of it, can’t be banned or shut off, which suggests the Nepali authorities wouldn’t have even had the ability to take the motion that sparked the protests.
Freedom tech doesn’t simply exist to assist individuals combat the battles to get their freedom again — it’s there to assist them preserve it, as nicely.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are solely the writer’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
