BChat: Decentralized Messaging That Drops Phone Numbers
BChat is an open-source app on the Beldex network that routes encrypted messages through masternodes, removes phone-number registration and reduces metadata collection.
BChat, launched publicly in 2022, is an open-source messaging app built on the Beldex network. The app routes end-to-end encrypted messages through a network of masternodes, removes the requirement to register with a phone number or email, and is designed to limit metadata collection.
Messages on BChat travel over the Beldex network, which operates more than 2,000 masternodes. Each message is routed through at least three nodes before delivery. BChat uses the open-source TextSecure encryption protocol and offers features such as group chats, disappearing messages, images, video, voice notes, emoji reactions and basic text formatting. The app is available on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Linux.
Accounts are created without a phone number or email. Users generate a 24–26-word recovery seed (mnemonic phrase), receive a 64–66-character BChat ID and link a Beldex wallet address. The same seed phrase works with the Beldex wallet; losing the seed makes the account inaccessible. The Beldex Name Service lets users map a human-readable .bdx name to a BChat ID for easier discovery across the ecosystem.
BChat separates message content protection from metadata protection. End-to-end encryption prevents intermediaries from reading message text. To reduce the traces that typically identify sender, recipient and timing, BChat keeps account identities cryptographic and minimizes links to real-world identifiers.
Beldex is the native asset and protocol behind BChat. Each user gets a Beldex address that links their messaging identity to the broader Beldex network. The ecosystem includes BelNet, an onion-routing VPN, the Beldex Browser for Web3 access, and the Beldex Privacy Protocol for cross-chain anonymity.
The project plans a network-level upgrade in the second quarter of 2026 to add Dandelion++, a protocol intended to make it harder to trace or correlate activity on the blockchain. Court records and law enforcement filings have shown that message metadata and blockchain addresses have been obtained and traced in investigations, which has informed design priorities for privacy-focused systems.
BChat continues to add user-facing features and protocol-level privacy improvements within the Beldex ecosystem.
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