Last month, a user on Reddit shared a WhatsApp messaging competitor that works on Bitcoin's Lightning Network called WhatSat.
Source: Reddit
This is a powerful P2P private chat messaging app that utilizes Bitcoin's Blockchain. Another added to the list of use cases for blockchain.
How it Works
Using the Go programming language, you would use the basic command-line client to send messages like other apps but with a few tweaks.
Recent changes to the protocol made it easier then before to attach arbitrary data to a payment. This demo leverages that by attaching a text message and a sender signature.
Ideally users would send each other 0 sat payments and only drop off fees along the way. But that is currently not supported in the protocol. Also, there are minimum htlc amount constraints on channels. As a workaround, in anticipation of a true micropayment network, some money is paid to the recipient of the message. In this demo, it is 1000 msat by default (can be configured through a command line flag). Both parties keeping a running balance of what they owe the other and send that back with the next message.
A previous version of Whatsat used a more heavily customized fork of lnd. This fork also allowed sending messages for free by always failing payments. That approach has been abandoned because there is no good support in lnd to reliably intercept those failures at the receiver side.
Features
- Uses Bitcoin Lightning Network
- End-to-End Encryption
- Uses The Onion Router(TOR)
- Censorship Resistant
With growing privacy concerns, the popularity of private messing apps like iMessage and WhatsApp is on the rise.
Even though there are messaging apps that use end-to-end encryption, the encrypted data still passes through centralized servers that are owned by the company behind the apps. If those servers were to fail, you would not be able to send messages. But through blockchain, the decentralized nature makes it almost impossible to run into failed servers and always be able to connect to Bitcoin Networks. With satellites running Bitcoin networks that cover all major continents on Earth, you can always have a connection and be able to send transactions and messages through satellite without an internet connection.
WhatSat is in early development and while there are other blockchain messaging apps like Dust or Status available, they use either their own separate blockchain or Ethereum and not the blockchain that is the most distributed #1 coin, Bitcoin.
