Terms of service

What this covers

These terms cover the DChat application, this website, and your use of the DChat network. They are written to be read, so they are shorter and plainer than most, and they say what is actually true about a system where the operator holds no keys.

Using the app means accepting them. If you do not accept them, the remedy is simple: do not use the app, and delete it if you already have.

Your account is yours, with everything that implies

Your account is a key pair generated on your device. There is no password to reset because there is no server holding a credential. That removes an entire category of risk and creates one in exchange, and the trade is yours to accept.

You are responsible for keeping your recovery phrase safe and private. Anyone who has it is you as far as the network is concerned: they can read your messages, impersonate you, and spend your funds. Nobody at DChat will ever ask for it, and any message that does is an attempt to rob you.

Acceptable use

Do not use DChat to commit crimes, to harass or threaten people, to distribute material that sexually exploits children, to infringe copyright, or to attack the network or its users.

Be aware of what enforcement can and cannot mean here. Nobody can read your messages, so no operator can detect what you send. What the network can do is act on the public registry: an identity can be reported, banned, or purged through the chain's governance process. What no operator can do is delete your messages, suspend your key pair, or take your funds.

Content in a conversation is the responsibility of the people in it. DChat does not host, moderate, or have any technical means to review it.

The network is not us

Relay nodes are run by independent operators who stake tokens for the right to run them. They are not employees or agents of DChat. Their availability, their jurisdiction and their conduct are not within DChat's control, which is the point of a decentralized network and also a genuine limitation on what can be promised about it.

Undelivered messages are held as ciphertext for up to 14 days, 30 days for configuration messages, then deleted. A message you send may be replicated across many nodes until it is collected. None of them can read it.

Tokens, fees and the wallet

The wallet is non-custodial. DChat never holds your funds, cannot freeze them, cannot reverse a transaction and cannot recover them if you lose your phrase or send to a wrong address. A confirmed on-chain transaction is final.

Network fees are paid to the network, not to DChat. Rewards for messaging activity and for running a node are governed by parameters on the chain, and those parameters can change through governance.

Availability and no warranty

The software is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind. It has not been through an independent security audit, which is stated plainly on the security page, in the whitepaper and in the specification rather than left for you to discover.

No uptime is guaranteed. Messages can be delayed or, if undelivered past the retention window, lost. Features can change or be withdrawn. Where the law does not allow a warranty to be excluded, the exclusion applies only so far as that law permits.

Liability

To the extent the law allows, DChat is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for lost profit, for lost data, for a lost recovery phrase, for a mistaken or fraudulent transaction, for the conduct of a node operator, or for anything another user sends you.

Nothing here excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Your content stays yours

You keep every right in what you write and send. DChat claims no licence over it, and could not exercise one if it did: the content is encrypted and no operator can read it.

The DChat name and marks belong to DChat. The protocol specification is published for anyone to read, implement and attack. The SDK is not currently published as open source, which is stated on the SDK guide.

Enterprise deployments

White-label and on-premises deployments are governed by a separate written agreement. Where that agreement and these terms differ, the agreement wins. See the enterprise page.

Changes, and how this ends

These terms may change. Material changes will be noted here with a date; this version is dated 31 July 2026. Continuing to use DChat after a change means accepting it.

You end this agreement by deleting the app. There is no account to close, because there is no account on any server to begin with.

DChat cannot terminate your account, because DChat does not control it. What governance can do is remove an identity from the public registry, and that neither disables your keys nor touches your funds.

Questions go through the contact form.