What DChat sees.
And what it does not.
Most privacy policies are written to obscure what a company collects. This page is written to tell you exactly what we can and cannot access, and why.
The honest summary
- We cannot read your messages. They are encrypted before leaving your device.
- We do not know who you are. No name, email, or phone number is required.
- Your messages are stored only on your device. They are never uploaded to any server or chain.
- We cannot ban or suspend your account. It is controlled by your private key.
- We cannot recover your account. If you lose your keys, they are gone.
Information that is technically inaccessible to us
These are not policy commitments. They are technical facts about how the system is built.
Message content
Every message is encrypted with your contact's public key on your device. Messages are delivered off-chain and stored only on your device and your contact's device. They are never uploaded to any server, cloud, or blockchain. Only the holder of the recipient's private key can decrypt them.
Your private key and recovery phrase
Your private key never leaves your device. It is generated locally and stored in your device's secure storage. DChat has no server that holds keys. Your recovery phrase is derived from your key and shown to you once inside the app. We have no record of it.
Your real-world identity
Creating a DChat account requires no name, no email address, no phone number, and no government ID. We have no way to link your DChat address to who you are in the real world unless you tell us.
Your IP address, by default
Messages are delivered between devices and do not pass through centralized DChat servers, so we do not log your IP address. For further anonymity, DChat can be used over Tor or a VPN, which we encourage.
What is on-chain vs on-device
DChat uses the blockchain only for identity. Your messages never touch it.
| Data | Where it lives | Visible to others? |
|---|---|---|
| Message content | On-device only | No |
| Your wallet address | On-chain | Public |
| Your username | Optional, on-chain | If set |
| Profile display name / photo | Optional, on-chain | If set |
| Group membership | On-chain | Encrypted list |
| Private key / recovery phrase | On-device only | Never |
What DChat can and cannot do
- Release new versions of the app
- Deploy upgrades to our blockchain nodes
- Respond to your support messages
- Set network-wide fee parameters via governance
- Block addresses at the app layer in our official clients
- Read your encrypted messages
- Access or delete your messages
- Suspend or terminate your account
- Reset your password or recovery phrase
- Identify you from your address alone
- Stop you from using third-party clients
External services we use
DChat uses a small number of external services to operate. Here is what each one receives.
Blockchain validators
Independent node operators validate transactions on the DChat blockchain. They handle identity registrations, username records, and group membership, not message content. Messages never pass through validators.
IPFS (media storage)
Images, videos, and files are encrypted before upload and stored on IPFS. The IPFS content hash is stored on-chain and is public, but the content itself is encrypted and unreadable without the decryption key.
Crash reporting (optional)
DChat may collect anonymous crash reports to fix bugs. These reports never include message content, contacts, or your DChat address, and crash reporting can be disabled in Settings under Privacy.
What happens if law enforcement contacts DChat
If a government or law enforcement agency sends DChat a legal demand for user data, we can only provide what we have access to. That means:
- Public blockchain data (identity records, usernames, group memberships), which is already publicly visible to anyone
- Crash reports, if crash reporting was enabled and linked to a session
We cannot provide message content because messages are stored only on users' devices, not on our servers or the blockchain. We cannot identify a real person from a DChat address because we do not collect that information.
Privacy questions and contact
If you have a specific question about your privacy or data on DChat, start a conversation with the official DChat account inside the app, or reach us through the contact page.