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On Monday, September 8, 2025, Nepalese youth commenced demonstrations in the streets of Kathmandu in reaction to the Nepali government’s prohibition of 26 significant social media platforms on Thursday, September 4, 2025.
At the peak of the demonstrations, the Nepalese protestors started downloading Bitchat, an innovative application created and designed by Twitter/X and Block founder Jack Dorsey along with open-source developer Calle.
The application, a censorship-resistant messaging tool that employs Bluetooth mesh technology alongside the Nostr protocol and that doesn’t even necessitate an internet connection for operation, was downloaded nearly 49,000 times on September 8 in Nepal, based on data shared by Calle on X.
Bitchat permitted the protestors to communicate freely with each other as they ousted the nation’s prime minister (and set fire to the nation’s parliament building).
The Lesson for Nepali Youth
The key takeaway is that applications like Bitchat are not merely vital instruments during the outage of centralized communication services and in the context of protests, but they are crucial in safeguarding rights that support free and open societies.
In our contemporary digital landscape, we must safeguard the liberty to not only converse online but also to engage in transactions within the digital realm.
A tool like Bitchat, which currently facilitates the former, should also soon support the latter, according to reporting from Forbes, which cited Calle, who expressed his aspiration to enable Bitcoin-based Ecash transactions through Bitchat shortly.
By adopting tools like Bitchat, Bitcoin, Ecash, and Nostr — staples of freedom tech — the Nepali youth can aid in preventing the sort of power misuse that they just protested against.
For instance, Nostr and the various social media clients built on it, cannot be prohibited or disabled, implying that the Nepali government wouldn’t have even possessed the authority to take the actions that prompted the protests.
Freedom tech doesn’t merely exist to assist individuals in their struggles to regain their liberties — it’s also there to support them in maintaining it.
This article is a Take. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
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