BChat, the privacy messenger, has a number of privacy features that help users to send truly private messages. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
BChat is a decentralized messaging app which is built on the Beldex network. This opens a gate for private messaging platforms without any personal information. You just need a BChat ID to start the conversation.
Not all messaging apps in use today care for privacy. All our activities, including our data and associated metadata is constantly monitored by third parties to send us tailored advertisements.
You might wonder how you got an ad for a product that you discussed with your friend yesterday. You may be paranoid or downright take aback that all your conversations are read by some random person or processed by an algorithm.
But BChat was built with a privacy-first approach. BChat doesn’t allow anyone to see your conversations or sell you a product. There are no advertisements on BChat simply because BChat doesn’t generate its revenue from ads.
It is a free to use open source application.
BChat fully understands the importance of privacy and encrypts every message you send, end-to-end. It uses the time-tested text-secure protocol. Your encrypted messages are onion routed via nodes on the Beldex network. Thus, each message is passed through a series of nodes, at minimum 3 hops.
No one can decipher the message without the right private key. Only the person on the other end whose public ID (BChat ID) the message is sent to can decrypt the message. This way all your conversations are safe and secure. Your online privacy is guaranteed.
Features of BChat
As BChat uses cryptographic encryption to protect your privacy, you may wonder about the usability and accessibility of the dApp. Web3 applications today do not have a seamless user interface which hinders the new user onboarding process.
But BChat was built as a complete user-friendly dApp, giving you seamless usability and accessibility of all of its features. BChat supports all the necessary features for instant messaging applications and more (the Web3 aspect of it).
Creating An Account On BChat
Creating an account is all you have to do to explore the BChat private messenger. Now, on other messaging apps, this is where your privacy is affected. But BChat doesn’t require your phone number, email address, or require you to create a username.
You can simply download the BChat messenger from PlayStore or AppStore. Open the app and hit the ‘Create Account’ button. This will generate a 24–26 word recovery seed (Mnemonic phrase), a 64–66 character long BChat ID, and a corresponding Beldex wallet address.
BChat’s recovery seed can also be used on the Beldex Wallet. This will restore the account with the wallet address that’s tagged to your BChat ID.
Save your recovery seed in a safe place. Preferably write it down on paper. Do not store a digital copy of it. Losing your recovery seed means you lose access to your account.
Once you’ve saved your recovery seed, you can then enter the application and set your display name.
Tada! You have now created an account on BChat.
As stated before, this will give you a BChat ID — the one which is used to send and receive messages. And you also get a unique Beldex wallet address tagged to your BChat ID. You can pay BDX to your friends using the Beldex address. (an upcoming feature on BChat).
Add Your Favourite Person to the Conversation
Like all other messaging applications that work based on the phone number, you don’t need someone’s phone number to start texting them. BChat breaks this barrier. You only need a person’s BChat ID to start a conversation with them.
Group Chats on BChat
BChat also allows you to have group conversations with various people. Just like any other messaging app you can create a group chat on the BChat platform. There are two kinds of groups on BChat. They are,
Secret Groups
You can form a secret group with your existing contacts. Admins can choose to add or remove their contacts present in the private groups. Secret groups support a maximum of 100 members. Form a group and start a whole new conversation today.
Social Groups
Social groups are large groups where you can interact with others who are not in your contacts. Social Groups are open communities, anyone can join the group. The group will be managed by the administrator who creates the group using a dedicated open group server.
Social groups are open for anyone to join through a group invite link. Social groups do not have a maximum limit to the number of members who can join the group.
The administrator can increase the capacity of the group as and when required by increasing the server capacity. If you’re looking for a particular group, you can enter the invite link into the Social Group URL field to search for it and then join it.
Presently, the Beldex foundation manages 5 social groups namely,
Beldex
BChat
BelNet
Masternode
Crypto News
Note: These URLs are not meant to be entered into your browser’s URL field. You can join these groups by entering the group’s URL on BChat on Social Groups -> Social Groups URL Search Field.
Themes
Initially, BChat was built with a single theme option. But due to popular user suggestions and feedback, BChat added dual themes. Currently, BChat has both light and dark themes, in which the background colour is highlighted light and dark according to BChat’s green theme.
Wondering where to switch to the dark mode? Click the profile icon at the top right corner.
You can find the dark mode toggle icon at the bottom of the profile settings menu. If you touch that icon you can jump into the night mode and BChat will be enabled in everyone’s favourite dark mode.
Here’s a look at the light mode ⬇️
Message Requests
We all hate spam, don’t we? That’s why BChat introduced the message request feature. All new messages are initially routed to the message request tab.
Once a message request from your friend is accepted, they are added to your BChat contacts.
Replying to a message request also accepts it and adds the BChat ID to your contacts.
Message request is significant as it keeps spammers and scammers at bay.
To prevent spam and unsolicited DMs, BChat has also disabled users from seeing each other’s complete BChat ID on open groups.
Disappearing Messages
Disappearing messages are the go-to feature of a private messaging app like BChat.
You can set disappearing messages for a few seconds (5, 10, 30), to few minutes (1, 5, 30), to few hours (1, 6, 12), and even a day or a week.
Disappearing messages help you automatically clean up the chat after it’s done and dusted.
Send Media, Voice Notes, & Files
BChat supports a wide range of files including images, videos, audio files, sending voice notes, GIFs, PDFs, etc.
Images sent on BChat are highly composable. BChat currently supports a maximum file size of 6 Mb due to its decentralized nature, however, this will be increased in the future as we scale up our systems.
You can also send link previews on BChat for a wide range of supported websites.
Emojis for Each of Your Emotions
Who doesn’t love emojis? Emojis help us get our emotions across on instant messaging platforms.
Did you know that text without emoji sounds serious if you aren’t acquainted with the person?
Add a bit of spice to your conversations with emojis 🤩🙊😎😞🔥🚀
Peer to Peer Voice & Video Calls
Make real-time, peer to peer, secure, and high-definition voice and video calls on BChat.
To make a voice or video call, select an individual’s chat box and tap the 📞 icon at the top-right.
Once you’re connected over voice call, you can then switch to a video call using the 📹 icon at the bottom.
Calls on BChat are peer to peer and your identity is only known to the recipient of the call.
Notification Settings
Notification settings on BChat provide you a number of options such as receiving all notifications or customizing the floating, lock screen, sound, vibration, and other notification settings.
You can also choose to show only the name, name & message, or even no name or message in the notification.
You can access these options under Settings > Notifications.
Privacy Settings
Privacy settings on BChat include the screen security (that blocks in-app screenshots). You can only take an in-app screenshot if you disable this feature.
The incognito keyboard feature, when enabled, helps prevent your device or your third party keyboard service providers from learning the phrases or words that you type.
Other privacy settings include read receipts, typing indicators, sending link previews, and enabling/disabling BChat’s voice and video calls.
You can access these features under Settings > Privacy.
My Account & Chat Options
You can access the Chat options under Settings > My Account > Chat Settings.
Hops let you see the masternodes/locations where your messages are currently being routed through.
Other options such as App Lock and Clear Data let you change/modify your BChat account’s PIN and clear your account data from the local device, respectively.
Explore BChat
Explore BChat to get hands-on experience using these features. The BChat team is working on various new trends and features to enhance the user experience without compromising privacy.
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