On Sunday, Elon Musk announced that Xchat, a new version of X's Direct Messaging (DM) feature, is rolling out with support for features such as lost messages, encryption and file sharing, along with voice call support.
XChat has just started beta testing between user groups in selected groups, so the new features are not yet widely available. However, Musk said the X-Team hopes to bring XChat to all users this week, unless they encounter scaling issues during deployment.
In a series of X posts, Musk also noted that an updated version of Xchat is built on rust with “Bitcoin Style” encryption and “all-new architecture.” Given that Bitcoin itself cannot be described as “crypto”, it is not clear what Bitcoin-style encryption means. (Bitcoin uses public key encryption and signatures for security purposes.)
As a result, some have debated whether Musk simply uses terms to speak marketing, misunderstanding encryption, or using the wrong words.
X owners often say they want to challenge X's DMs to encrypted platforms such as signaling and iMessage. However, calling XChat to a service that only has “Bitcoin-style encryption” raises doubts whether it is truly a potential competitor.
Additionally, Musk shared that XChat users can now make audio and video calls on all platforms without a phone number.
Prior to this launch, X said it was pausing work on encrypted DMS, possibly because Xchat replaces the old system soon.
Unfortunately for X users, the service has faced a great deal of instability over the past week or so. Multiple outages prevented users from viewing the timeline and were unable to use other features, including XChat.