Block CEO Jack Dorsey’s decentralized peer-to-peer messaging service Bitchat is suddenly getting a lot of attention in Madagascar, where protests broke out in the capital Antananarivo last Thursday.
The protests happened because of anger over repeated power cuts and water shortages, which pushed people onto the streets. Some clashes with police were reported, along with looting in some areas.
The situation even led to the sacking of Madagascar’s energy minister. To calm things down, the government quickly announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew, but demonstrations continued on Friday and Saturday in different parts of the country.
The rise in Bitchat use was first shared by a Bitcoin open-source developer “callebtc,” on X. On Sunday, he posted: “Bitchat downloads spiking in Madagascar,” along with screenshots of local news coverage of the protests.
Meanwhile, Google Trends also showed a sharp rise in searches for the word “Bitchat” in Madagascar, with activity jumping from zero to the highest level of interest possible. The biggest number of searches came from Antananarivo, where most of the protests took place.
Google Trends also showed that searches like “Bitchat download” and “how to use Bitchat” became what it calls “breakout topics,” meaning they grew very quickly in a short time.
Data from Chrome-Stats showed that Bitchat has been downloaded 365,307 times since its launch. More than 21,000 of those downloads happened in just one day, and more than 71,000 in the past week.
The data did not show which countries were responsible for the recent downloads, but the rise in Madagascar matches earlier patterns.
In September, Bitchat downloads also increased in Nepal and Indonesia during protests over corruption, when governments briefly blocked or restricted popular social media apps.
Meanwhile, Madagascar has limited access to the internet compared to other countries. Out of nearly 32 million people, only 6.6 million had internet access at the start of 2025, according to DataReportal.
At the same time, there were over 18 million active mobile connections, but many were only for voice or text messages and not full internet services.
Bitchat was launched in beta in July. Unlike most apps, it can work without the internet by using Bluetooth mesh networks that connect phones directly. The app also does not need phone numbers, email addresses, or central servers. Messages are encrypted, and the design is fully decentralized, meaning no single company or authority controls it.
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