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Nymchat (Nostr Ynstant Messenger) is a decentralized, pseudonymous chat application built on the Nostr protocol. It allows you to communicate freely without registration, accounts, or centralized servers.

Messages are distributed across hundreds of community-operated Nostr relays worldwide, making the network censorship-resistant and resilient. Temporary keypairs are auto-generated each session for maximum pseudonymity - your nym disappears when you disconnect.

Nymchat uses ephemeral connections only. Temporary keypairs are auto-generated for maximum pseudonymity. Your identity exists only for the current session and leaves no trace when you disconnect. No accounts, no registration, no persistent data.

Nymchat uses ephemeral geohash and non-geohash channels - location-based chat rooms using geohash codes (e.g., #w1, #dr5r). These are bridged with Bitchat and can be sorted by proximity to your location.

All messages are temporary and exist only during active sessions, leaving no permanent trace.

Yes. The Android and iOS apps include a Bluetooth mesh: nearby devices connect directly to each other over Bluetooth LE and relay messages hop by hop, so a message can reach someone further away by passing through the phones in between. No internet, no cell service, no infrastructure of any kind.

It is bridged with Bitchat, so Nymchat and Bitchat users share the same mesh. Public channels and private messages both work over it. When you are online, messages take the internet route as usual and fall back to Bluetooth automatically when you are not.

Ghost Mode hides who you are on the Bluetooth mesh. Normally your device advertises a stable identifier, which means anyone within Bluetooth range can recognize you and notice the same device turning up in different places. Ghost Mode replaces every part of that — the device identifier, the signing key, the display name and the Nostr identity — with throwaway values, and swaps them again every few minutes.

You can still send and receive messages while it is on. Peers see an anonymous identity rather than your usual one, and cannot tell it was you. Turning it off restores your normal identity. It is off by default and toggled from the mesh screen.

It is a meaningful improvement, not a guarantee: your phone's Bluetooth hardware address is controlled by the operating system rather than by Nymchat, and habits like who you talk to and how you write can still be recognizable. Treat it as making you much harder to follow, not as anonymity.

Direct messages in Nymchat use Nostr's NIP-17 encryption standard for end-to-end encrypted communication that can't be linked to your session. Only you and your recipient can read the messages.

Group chats use NIP-17 with enhanced timing attack resistance. Each member generates rotating ephemeral recipient keys, and messages are individually gift-wrapped per member using one-time public keys. This prevents relays from correlating group membership or link messages to real identities. Members automatically broadcast fresh keys for post-compromise recovery.

Between Nymchat users, both PMs and group chats can also use quantum-resistant encryption — see the next question.

To send a PM, use the /pm nym#xxxx command or click on any user's nym and select "Private Message" from the context menu.

Each user is identified by their nym + a 4-character suffix from their public key (e.g., cyber_wolf#a3f2), ensuring you can distinguish between users with similar names.

For private messages and group chats between Nymchat users, yes. Nymchat combines the standard NIP-44 key exchange with ML-KEM-768, the post-quantum algorithm standardized by NIST as FIPS 203. Both would have to be broken to read a message, so it is at least as strong as before and quantum-safe on top.

This matters because of "harvest now, decrypt later": an adversary can record encrypted traffic today and store it until a quantum computer can break the elliptic-curve key exchange that ordinary Nostr encryption relies on. The hybrid exchange means recorded traffic stays unreadable.

It protects the contents of your messages, not the signatures on them. Nostr event signatures are still secp256k1, so this is not a claim that every part of the protocol is quantum-proof — the same position Signal takes with its own post-quantum upgrade.

It's automatic — there's no setting to turn on. Messages sent this way show a small shield next to the padlock. Bitchat users and other Nostr clients are unaffected and keep receiving standard NIP-17, so nothing breaks when you message someone outside Nymchat. The one exception is browser-extension and remote-signer logins, which can't use it: those signers return a finished message rather than a key we can combine.

If you use the same account on more than one device, update them all: an older version can't read the new format and would stop receiving your messages until it does.

Nymchat supports peer-to-peer audio and video calls in both 1:1 private messages and group chats. Media flows directly between participants over WebRTC, while call control (invites, accepts, ICE candidates) is signaled through encrypted Nostr events tagged to each recipient - there's no central call server.

To start a call, open a private message or group chat and use the audio or video call button in the header. Incoming calls trigger a ring modal with the caller's nym; if unanswered, the call auto-declines after 45 seconds. During a call you can mute the microphone or toggle the camera at any time.

Audio calls request the microphone only; video calls request both camera and microphone at an ideal 1280×720 resolution. In Settings, you can choose who's allowed to ring you (everyone, friends only, or disabled) - "friends only" silently ignores calls from non-friends.

⚠ Privacy note: Because calls are peer-to-peer over WebRTC, your true IP address may be revealed to the other party (and to anyone else in a group call). Use a VPN or Tor if you need to conceal it.

Nymbot is the built-in AI chat bot. You can talk to it in two ways:

• Free public-channel bot: Type ?ask <question> or mention @Nymbot in any channel. Quote-replying to a Nymbot response continues the conversation with short-term context. This version runs a single general-purpose AI model and is free to use.
• Premium private Nymbot: Open a private, end-to-end encrypted 1:1 chat with Nymbot (click its nym or avatar and choose "Private Message", or pick Nymbot from the Nyms sidebar). Messages are NIP-17 gift-wrapped, so only you and the bot can read them. Nymbot can't be added to group chats - private chats are 1:1 only.

The premium private bot is a smarter, multi-model setup: it reads each message, classifies the task (coding, reasoning/math, creative writing, translation, or general chat) and routes it to the best-suited large language model. That makes premium replies noticeably sharper and more capable than the free public bot. Both versions share the same live web search and changelog access for fresh weather, news, prices, and sports data.

Credits and pricing: Private replies are paid with credits, purchased via Bitcoin Lightning zaps. General chat, creative writing, and translation cost 1 credit per reply; coding and reasoning/math cost 2 credits (they use larger models). One credit is roughly 10 sats, with a small bulk bonus at higher zap amounts (+10% at 500 sats, +15% at 1K, +20% at 5K). Use ?buy to top up, ?balance to check credits, and ?gift @nym to send credits to another user. Inside a private chat, ?clear wipes the conversation history.

Nymchat integrates Lightning Network for instant Bitcoin micropayments called "zaps." You can tip messages you appreciate or send Bitcoin directly to users.

To receive zaps, set up a Lightning address in Settings (format: user@domain.com). To send a zap, click a user's nym and select "⚡ Zap" or use the quick zap button that appears on messages with existing zaps.

Zaps are displayed in real-time on messages, showing the total amount and number of zappers. The system generates Lightning invoices automatically and monitors payment status.

Nymchat supports emoji reactions on messages (similar to Discord or Slack). Click on a user's nym and select "React" or hover over a message to see the reaction button.

You can react with any emoji from our extensive library organized by category (smileys, gestures, hearts, symbols, etc.). Recent emojis are remembered for quick access.

To insert emojis in your messages, type : followed by a name (like :smile:) for autocomplete, or click the emoji button in the input area. Reactions use Nostr's NIP-25 standard.

Nymchat supports rich text formatting similar to Discord or Slack:

• Bold: **text** or __text__
• Italic: *text* or _text_
• Strikethrough: ~~text~~
• Code: `code` or code blocks with ```code```
• Quotes: Start line with >
• Headers: # H1, ## H2, ### H3

Commands like /bold, /italic, /quote, and /code provide shortcuts for quick formatting.

Block users: Use /block nym#xxxx or click a user's nym and select "Block User." Blocked users' messages are hidden and they won't see your activity.

Block channels: Use /block #channelname or /block while in a channel to block it. Blocked channels are hidden from your sidebar.

Block keywords: Add keywords in Settings → Blocked Keywords to hide messages containing specific words or phrases across all channels.

View and manage blocks in Settings.

When enabled in Settings, Nymchat can sort geohash channels by distance from your location. This requires browser location permission.

Geohash channels are location-based chat rooms using standardized geohash codes. They're bridged with Bitchat, allowing cross-platform communication. The proximity feature helps you discover and prioritize local channels.

Disable this feature anytime in Settings → "Sort Geohash Channels by Proximity."

Share channel URLs: Click the share button in the channel header or use /share to generate a shareable URL.

Invite to current channel: Use /invite nym#xxxx to send an invitation PM with channel details.

Nymchat offers several terminal-inspired themes:

• Bitchat: Multicolor theme with unique per-user colors (default)
• Matrix Green: Classic green-on-black terminal aesthetic
• Amber Terminal: Vintage amber CRT screen appearance
• Cyberpunk: Neon purple and cyan color scheme
• Hacker Blue: Blue-tinted terminal theme
• Ghost: High-contrast black and white mode

Additional customization includes notification sounds (Classic Beep, ICQ, MSN), auto-scroll behavior, timestamp display, and image blur settings.

Nymchat provides maximum pseudonymity through ephemeral connections. Temporary keypairs are generated per session with no connection to your real identity. Messages aren't permanently stored, and your nym disappears when you disconnect. Direct messages and group chats use NIP-17 end-to-end encryption with rotating ephemeral keys and timing attack resistance to prevent metadata correlation.

Important notes: Channel messages are visible to anyone on the Nostr network. Use encrypted PMs for truly private conversations. For maximum pseudonymity, use Tor or a VPN you paid for using cash or monero.

Identity encryption is optional protection for the saved identity's (nsec) private key on a device, so it can't be read from local storage without unlocking. You pick the unlock factor per device: a password, a PIN, a passkey, or a biometric.

• Passkey and biometric unlock use WebAuthn with the PRF extension to derive the key.
• Password and PIN use PBKDF2.

The key stays in memory only for the session, and the plaintext key is never written to disk while encryption is on. After you enable it, the app confirms an unlock right away so you're not locked out if an authenticator turns out not to support PRF.

No password, salt, or credential is ever synced across devices. Only an on/off preference syncs, so you can choose to set encryption up on a new device.

Panic wipe mode lets you immediately destroy all local data on the device. Press and hold the "Your Nym" section for 2 seconds to trigger it.

The wipe is comprehensive. It encrypts every local storage value with a random one-time key that is then discarded, overwrites the values with junk, clears localStorage and sessionStorage, overwrites and deletes all IndexedDB databases, clears the caches, unregisters the service worker, and reloads to a fresh first-run state.

If you have identity encryption enabled, protection extends even further: any bytes that survive deletion are ciphertext under a key nobody holds.

Nymchat is available as a native app and a Progressive Web App (PWA):

• iOS: Download from the App Store (TestFlight)
• Android: Get it on Google Play or get it on Zapstore
• PWA: Open web.nymchat.app in your browser and "Add to Home Screen"

The mobile interface is optimized with touch-friendly controls, swipe gestures for opening the sidebar, and a responsive layout that adapts to your screen size. All features work on mobile, including reactions and zaps.

Nymchat is bridged with Jack Dorsey's Bitchat application, specifically for geohash-based location channels. This means messages sent in geohash channels on Nymchat appear in Bitchat and vice versa.

The bridge allows cross-platform communication between Nymchat's web-based interface and Bitchat's mobile app, creating a larger interconnected network of location-based chat rooms using the same Nostr protocol underneath.

Nymchat connects to multiple Nostr relays simultaneously for redundancy and speed:

• Broadcast relays: Core relays for sending messages (you're connected to all of them)
• Read relays: Additional relays discovered automatically for receiving messages (up to 1000+)
• Nosflare: Write-only relay for message broadcasting

The app intelligently manages connections, automatically discovering new relays, blacklisting unresponsive relays, and retrying failed connections. You can view connected relays in Settings.

More relays = better censorship resistance and message delivery, but also more bandwidth usage.