Nepalis rush to Jack Dorsey’s bitchat amid violent corruption protests

Thousands of Nepalis turned to Jack Dorsey’s Bluetooth mesh network messaging app in response to the government’s social media ban, which has since been lifted.

Over 48,000 Nepalese people downloaded Block CEO Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer messaging app, bitchat, amid a series of violent protests over corruption and a short-lived social media ban earlier this week.

It followed a similar uptick in downloads in Indonesia last week after corruption-related protests erupted, according to Bitcoin open-source developer “callebtc,” who is working on bitchat.

“Last week, we observed a sudden spike in bitchat downloads from Indonesia during nationwide protests. Today we’re seeing an even bigger spike from Nepal during youth protests over government corruption and a social media ban,” callebtc posted to X on Wednesday.

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