Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the boss of X (previously Twitter), Tesla, and SpaceX, introduced on Sunday the launch of a brand-new messaging app referred to as XChat. Neither the BTC market nor the tech group is impressed.
One of many key options of the brand new providing is that it is constructed on a programming language referred to as Rust with Bitcoin-style encryption. Whereas it sounds thrilling, the crypto group isn’t significantly psyched, elevating doubts about what precisely it means.
“Bitcoin primarily uses signatures, not encryption. This is like saying, we decided to run our rocket on water, since NASA uses Hydrogen and Oxygen,” Ian Miers, Assistant Professor of Laptop Science on the College of Maryland, mentioned on X.
Encryption refers back to the means of scrambling information in order that solely authorised events with the right keys can unscramble and skim it. Nonetheless, transactions executed on the Bitcoin blockchain aren’t encrypted however are signed. In actual fact, all information shared between Bitcoin nodes is unencrypted, permitting complete strangers to work together with the community.
“Needless to say “Bitcoin model” and “Rust” are not descriptions of an encryption scheme, nor are they strong indicators of security for a messaging app. Also, unless encrypted DMs are only in app, odds are they aren’t just in Rust,” Miers mentioned.
Bitcoin, the main cryptocurrency by market worth, traded flat close to $105,000, having dropped over 3% final week, in keeping with CoinDesk information.
Different key options of the brand new providing embody end-to-end encryption, disappearing messages, and the power to ship any kind of file, together with audio and video recordsdata, and not using a telephone quantity throughout all platforms.