On Monday 8 September 2025, the young Nepalese began to protest on the streets of Kathmandu in response to the 26 main social media platforms of the Nepalese government on Thursday 4 September 2025.
At the height of the protests, the Nepalese demonstrators began to download Bitchat, a new app created and developed by Twitter/X and Block Founder Jack Dorsey and the Open Source Calle developer.
The app, a censorship resistant messaging app that uses the technology of bluetooth mesh and the Nostr protocol and that does not require even an Internet connection to be used, has been downloaded almost 49,000 times on September 8 in Nepal, according to data shared by Calle on X.
Batchat allowed the demonstrators to communicate without permission with each other as they explored the first minister of the country (and burned the building of the country’s parliament).
The lesson for young Nepalese
The lesson here is that apps like Batchat are not only important tools to be used in the wake of the blackout of centralized communication services and during protests, but which are decisive in preserving the rights that support free and open companies.
In our modern digital world, we must preserve the freedom to communicate not only online, but also to translate into the digital space.
A tool like Batchat, which currently allows the first, should also allow the latter, according to Forbes’ relationships, which mentioned Calle, which expressed its goal of allowing Bitcoin -based ECASH transactions through Bitchat in the near future.
By embracing tools such as Batchat, Bitcoin, Ecash and Nostr – Freedom Tech Staples – young Nepalese can help prevent the type of abuse of power against which they have just protested.
For example, Nostr and the various customers of social media based on it cannot be prohibited or closed, which means that the Nepalese government would not even have had the power to act that triggered the protests.
Freedom Tech does not only exist to help people fight battles to recover their freedom – it’s there to help them keep it.
This article is a Take. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.