China has ordered Apple to remove Bitchat — a decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app built by Block CEO Jack Dorsey — from its China App Store, Dorsey revealed in a post on X on Sunday.
According to Dorsey, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) told Apple that Bitchat breached rules on online services with “public opinion or social mobilization capabilities,” a category that triggers mandatory security assessments before launch. Apple’s app review team informed Dorsey that both the App Store listing and the TestFlight beta would no longer be available to users in China, though the app remains downloadable elsewhere.
Bitchat’s technical design is central to the dispute. The app runs entirely over Bluetooth and mesh networking, requiring no internet connection — a setup that makes it much harder for governments to block via traditional internet shutdowns or firewall filtering. That resilience has made Bitchat popular during recent protest movements in countries such as Madagascar, Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia and Iran, where authorities have tried to restrict online communication.
On adoption, Bitchat has crossed the 3 million download mark across platforms, with more than 92,000 downloads in the past week alone (regional breakdowns were not provided). Google’s Play Store listing separately shows more than 1 million registered downloads.
The takedown underscores the friction between censorship-resistant, decentralized apps and national regulators — particularly in markets like China where online platforms are tightly controlled. For advocates of decentralized tech and free expression, the removal highlights both the practical power of mesh-based communications and the geopolitical and regulatory risks these tools face.
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