X now has an "encrypted" messaging feature called XChat
It offers vanishing messages, end-to-end encryption, file sharing, and audio and video calls that don’t require a phone number.
When Elon said he wanted X to become an everything app, it sounded like the typical PR-speak of a businessman who was arguably bullied into buying Twitter and making it his. But now, we’re starting to see what that everything app might look like — and the latest piece of the puzzle is XChat.
XChat is X's latest messaging update that’s meant to rival the likes of WhatsApp and Telegram. It’s rolling out first to Premium users, but Elon says it should be available to everyone sometime this week, as long as the team doesn’t run into scaling issues.
It offers vanishing messages, end-to-end encryption, file sharing, and audio and video calls that don’t require a phone number. It’s also been rebuilt from scratch in Rust, a modern programming language known for speed and safety, with an entirely new architecture behind it.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Musk described the update as using “Bitcoin-style encryption,” which has raised more than a few eyebrows. Bitcoin itself isn’t encrypted in the way messaging apps are; it’s built on public ledgers and transparency, not secrecy. Some critics think he may have meant “cryptography,” or that it’s just Elon being Elon with the buzzwords.
Still, the new tech behind it seems intentional, not just about upgrading DMs, but laying the groundwork for something bigger. Many believe this overhaul is part of X’s larger push to integrate peer-to-peer payments into chat, similar to how WeChat operates in China.
And this isn’t happening in isolation. Over the past year, X has been quietly expanding into other areas. There’s Grok, the AI chatbot that’s gone solo with its own app and also available in Telegram, taking on ChatGPT. And there is XTV, which has a mixed reception. And recently, there’s been talk of X Money, a finance product that's expected to roll out soon. Piece by piece, the “everything app” is starting to take shape.
Compared to rivals, though, XChat has a long way to go. WhatsApp boasts over 2 billion monthly users and supports strong encryption across the board. Signal is beloved by privacy purists. Meanwhile, X’s user base is far smaller and has reportedly been declining, and the platform’s recent instability hasn’t helped, with outages affecting timelines and chat features just last week.
So, while XChat might be another step toward the everything app vision, whether users will actually trust it, or even care, is another question entirely.
Louis Eriakha
