When Beijing Cleans House in the App Store
History repeats itself, but this time with an unexpected player. Apple has just removed Bitchat, the messaging application developed at the initiative of Jack Dorsey — the founder of Twitter turned emblematic figure of the Bitcoin movement — from its Chinese App Store. The reason? A direct request from Beijing authorities. A decision that hardly surprises observers accustomed to the pressure exerted by the Chinese government on foreign tech giants operating on its territory.
What exactly is Bitchat?
Launched in July 2025, Bitchat is not your typical messaging app. Unlike WhatsApp or Telegram, which rely on centralized servers, Bitchat operates on a decentralized model powered by Bluetooth mesh technology. Concretely, messages hop from phone to phone without passing through a central server — and most importantly, without requiring an internet connection. An architecture that makes it particularly difficult for regimes seeking to cut off communications to block.
Imagine a digital human chain where each smartphone becomes a link relaying information: that’s roughly the principle. No network needed, no central control point, no shutdown possible from a government office.
A tool for freedom in crisis zones
This technical design is not insignificant. Since its launch, Bitchat has been adopted in several contexts of political tensions and internet access restrictions. The application was notably used during protests in Madagascar, Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia, and more recently in Iran, where authorities were trying to silence protesters’ communications by restricting network access.
It’s precisely this last case that seems to have accelerated Beijing’s reaction. Seeing an application that enables bypassing internet blackouts during popular uprisings is not the kind of publicity a government concerned with controlling information flows appreciates.
Apple, caught between a rock and a hard place
For Apple, this removal illustrates a permanent and uncomfortable tension. The Cupertino company is regularly criticized for its compliance with Chinese demands, while also defending an image as a champion of privacy and individual freedoms. A tricky balancing act to maintain in the long run.
This isn’t the first time Apple has complied with Beijing’s requests: from VPNs to news apps, the list of removals from the Chinese App Store under government pressure is long. China represents one of the most strategic markets for the iPhone maker, which considerably limits its room for maneuver — or at least, its willingness to use it.
Jack Dorsey in the role of reluctant dissident
For Jack Dorsey, this ban is a form of paradoxical consecration. The entrepreneur, who stepped down from Twitter (now X) and has since thrown himself wholeheartedly into the Bitcoin ecosystem and decentralized technologies through his company Block, sees his application classified as a subversive tool by one of the world’s greatest powers. Hard to find a better marketing argument — though he probably wouldn’t present it that way.
Bitchat fits into a broader vision defended by Dorsey: that of open communication tools, resistant to censorship and free from the control of both states and private companies. An ideal shared by a significant portion of the crypto and Web3 community.
Putting it in perspective
The Bitchat affair goes far beyond a simple tech story. It crystallizes a fundamental battle opposing two radically different visions of the internet: on one side, a network that is open, decentralized, and uncontrollable by nature; on the other, a fragmented internet, monitored and regulated by sovereign states — what some call the “splinternet.”
China, with its Great Firewall, is the most developed example, but it’s not alone in heading that direction. What the Bitchat story reveals is that decentralized technologies are not merely financial instruments or speculative curiosities: for millions of people around the world, they are lifelines in contexts where freedom of expression is threatened. A reality that the usual debates about Bitcoin prices and NFTs sometimes tend to make people forget.