Following the national water and energy crisis in Madagascar, Bitchat, a decentralized peer-to‑peer messaging application from Jack Dorsey has seen a sharp increase in downloads.
On September 28, a Bitcoin advocate and developer Calle shared screenshots of media coverage of the protests with a post on X, which said, “bitchat downloads spiking in Madagascar.”
Recent protest breakouts
The protests began on September 25, 2025 in the country’s capital, Antananarivo, which led to clashes with law enforcement and an increase in looting instances. This, in turn, resulted in the Malagasy government removing its energy minister and imposing a curfew.
The rise in Bitchat installation in Madagascar is not an isolated incident. Similar situations in other nations were recently seen, including Nepal and Indonesia, where violent anti‑corruption protests also led to an increase in its user base.
Google statistics
According to data from Google Trends, searches for “Bitchat” spiked from 0 to 100, showcasing “peak popularity” on September 26, particularly in the Antananarivo region. Other related search queries such as “Bitchat download” and “how to use Bitchat” also saw a surge recently.
Chrome‑Stats data also shows a global increase in the app’s popularity, showing more than 21,000 installations in the last day and over 71,000 in the past week. However, these statistics do not specify the geographic origin of the downloads.
Growing Popularity of Bitchat
Bitchat was launched in July 2025 by Jack Dorsey, Block CEO and X co‑founder. The app operates over bluetooth mesh networks. It requires no internet, no servers, no phone numbers, which helps in maintaining user anonymity. It’s designed for privacy, working offline with end‑to‑end encryption, no user accounts, and messages that are deleted after a short time.