▶ Breaking

Meta is ending end-to-end encryption on Instagram DMs — May 8 2026. Here's what to use instead → // Discord leaked 70,000 government IDs. Why we built this → // OpenDescent v0.5.4 released — hubs, live streaming, signed file sharing. Download → // Normal life deserves privacy. // Meta is ending end-to-end encryption on Instagram DMs — May 8 2026. Here's what to use instead → // Discord leaked 70,000 government IDs. Why we built this → // OpenDescent v0.5.4 released — hubs, live streaming, signed file sharing. Download → // Normal life deserves privacy. //

Encrypted / Peer-to-peer / Open source / 分散型メッセンジャー

For normal people. Because normal life is worth keeping private.

Chat, call, and build communities without anyone watching. End-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer — nothing between you and the people you talk to.

▶ Download for Windows See how it works

AES-256

Message encryption

Ed25519

Identity keys

Zero

Central servers

Zero

Accounts to steal

Cipher // AES-256-GCM 暗号化中

1Typed

I love you

2Encrypted on device

—

YOU— PEER— PEER— THEM

3Delivered

—

01 Plaintext leaves device never

02 Hops peer-to-peer, never servers

03 Only recipient can decrypt

Why this exists

Private messaging shouldn't be suspicious. It should be normal.

For years, the internet sold you "private" messaging, then walked it back quietly — buried the setting, scanned "for safety", trained an AI on your chats. OpenDescent starts from the other end: nothing to roll back, because there was never anyone in the middle in the first place.

Nothing in the middle

Your messages travel peer-to-peer, encrypted before they leave your device. No company sees the plaintext. There isn't a server to scan, subpoena, or monetise — because there isn't a server at all.

No account, no ID

No phone number. No email. No government ID. Your identity is a cryptographic key on your device, backed up by a 12-word phrase you keep. There's nothing to leak, because nothing was ever collected.

Encrypted by default, period

Not opt-in. Not buried. Not "rolled back in May." Every message, call, and file transfer is end-to-end encrypted by default, always, with no toggle and no regional exceptions.

Everything you expect from a modern chat app. Nothing that spies on you.

§ 01 / Features

The flagship

Private messages, public-grade encryption.

Every text, voice note, and file you send is encrypted on your device with AES-256-GCM, using ephemeral X25519 keys so that even if a key is ever compromised, past messages stay private. Forward secrecy. No plaintext in transit. No plaintext at rest on anyone's server. There is no server.

X25519 DH + HKDF + AES-256-GCM + Ed25519 signatures

Hub // study-group ハブ

did you see the deadline moved?

yeah finals week, great

🎙 voice note · 0:08

sending the notes now

🌐

True peer-to-peer

Messages travel directly between devices. No middle server relays, stores, or can read a thing. Circuit relay and NAT hole-punching keep it working even on hostile networks.

libp2p / KadDHT / DCUtR

🧬

Cryptographic identity

An Ed25519 keypair is your account. No phone number. No email. No password. Back it up with a 12-word mnemonic, recover on any device, ever.

Ed25519 / BIP39 / TOFU pinning

📞

Voice & video calls

Crystal-clear WebRTC calls with DTLS-SRTP encryption. Direct connections whenever possible, TURN relay fallback when needed. Your calls don't touch anyone else's infrastructure.

WebRTC / STUN / TURN

🏛

Community hubs

Text channels, voice channels, roles, invites. The things a Discord server has — without a server. Hubs are peer-replicated and can't be shut down from the outside.

Categories / Channels / Roles

👤

Dead Drops

Onion-routed anonymous posts with proof-of-work spam prevention. No identity attached, no metadata trail. For the conversations that need to exist but shouldn't be traceable to a person.

Onion routing / PoW / Daily key

📡

P2P live streaming

Go live to your community. Viewers redistribute chunks to each other mesh-pull style (think BitTorrent, live) so the stream scales without a single point of failure — or a single point of surveillance.

WebRTC DataChannels / Mesh-pull

Watch encryption happen. In real time.

§ 02 / Security

Not a promise. A pipeline.

Every message you send runs through the same three steps: a fresh X25519 key agreement, an AES-256-GCM encryption, and an Ed25519 signature before it ever leaves your device. Here, you can watch it happen with your own words.

There's no special "encrypted mode" to toggle. This is the only mode there is.

› Type anything on the right
› Watch the keys agree, the message encrypt, and the signature sign
› Watch it route peer-to-peer to the recipient
› Watch it decrypt — only on their device

Cipher Machine // Live

Type & press Enter

X25519 Key

Waiting

AES-256-GCM

Waiting

Ed25519 Sign

Waiting

Your messages are encrypted before they leave your device.

Route YOU— PEER— PEER— THEM

How it works, without the jargon.

§ 03 / How it works

You make a key

Open the app and it generates a cryptographic key on your device. That key is your identity. We never see it. You back it up with a 12-word phrase — that's the only recovery path.

Ed25519 / BIP39 / local only

→

You connect peer-to-peer

Add friends by username or invite link. Your device talks directly to theirs through an encrypted mesh. If NAT gets in the way, circuit relay and hole-punching handle it. No server ever stores a message.

libp2p / KadDHT / circuit relay v2

→

Only the two of you can read it

Every message is encrypted on your device before it leaves, with a fresh key each time. Only the recipient's device can decrypt it. Not us. Not Meta. Not anyone pretending to be law enforcement.

AES-256-GCM / X25519 / forward secrecy

What actually makes us different.

§ 04 / Compared

Capability	Instagram DMs	Signal	Discord	WhatsApp	OpenDescent
End-to-end encrypted by default	Ending May 8	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
No phone number required	Required	Required	Required	Required	Never asked
No central servers	Meta-owned	Signal-owned	Discord-owned	Meta-owned	Peer-to-peer
Community hubs & channels	No	Limited	Yes	Groups only	Yes
Data breach risk	Active target	Metadata	70k IDs leaked '25	Lawsuit pending	Nothing to breach
Open source	No	Yes	No	Partial	MIT licensed
Can be forced to hand over messages	Yes, routinely	Metadata only	Yes	Metadata only	Nothing to hand over

OpenDescent vs Instagram → OpenDescent vs Signal → OpenDescent vs Discord → OpenDescent vs WhatsApp →

Built for how people actually talk.

§ 05 / Use cases

💬

Friends & family

Your group chat, your inside jokes, your birthday plans — none of it is advertising data. Send text, voice notes, photos and files without anyone scanning what you said to mum.

🎮

Communities

Game with your friends, run a study group, build a fan community. Hubs have channels, roles, and voice — like Discord, but without the ID uploads and the data breaches.

📰

Journalists & sources

Dead Drops let sources share information anonymously with onion routing. No metadata. No trace. No identity attached. No subpoena can pull something we don't have.

🌐

Organisers & activists

Coordinate across borders without a central authority that can be pressured, subpoenaed, or shut down. The network has no off switch — it exists as long as its users do.

📂

100% open source

Every line of code is public on GitHub. Audit it. Fork it. Build on it. MIT licensed.

🚫

Zero data collection

No analytics. No tracking. No telemetry. We don't know who uses this app — by design.

🛡

Nothing to breach

There's no central database. Your data lives on your device, encrypted at rest.

🔌

No kill switch

No server to unplug. No company to pressure. The network exists as long as its users do.

For the first ones.

§ 06 / Founder

★ Founder

Be one of the first few users to get lifetime Pro. Forever.

You believed early. We remember. Founder status includes a permanent badge on your profile, lifetime Pro access, and our eternal gratitude.

101 Slots available

£1 · one time, forever

Download the app to claim your Founder spot

Download OpenDescent, create your account, then upgrade to Founder's Edition from Settings.

Questions, straight answers.

§ 07 / FAQ

Is OpenDescent really free?01

Yes. The app is free and open source under the MIT license. An optional Pro subscription unlocks larger file transfers, unlimited hubs, and supports the project — but every core feature (messaging, calls, community hubs, encryption) is free forever.

Do I need to give you my phone number or email?02

No. OpenDescent requires no phone number, no email, and no account. Your identity is a cryptographic keypair generated on your device. You back it up with a 12-word mnemonic phrase — that's it.

How is OpenDescent different from Signal?03

Signal is end-to-end encrypted but runs on central servers and requires a phone number. OpenDescent is peer-to-peer — messages travel directly between devices with no servers in the middle — and requires no phone number or account. OpenDescent also supports Discord-style community hubs, which Signal does not.

What happens to my messages if I lose my phone?04

Your 12-word mnemonic recovers your identity on any new device. Messages are stored encrypted on your devices — if you lose the device without a backup, the messages are gone (nobody else has a copy, including us). That's the point of end-to-end encryption.

See all questions →