Messaging apps are ubiquitous – over 3.6 billion people use them worldwide, with the average person sending up to 72 messages every 24 hours. WhatsApp alone transmits more than 100 billion messages daily, while WeChat transmits 205 million video messages.
With this popularity, a darker side has emerged: hacked personal data, cyber theft, and government breaches of privacy.
The way messaging apps are designed, operated, and managed by default exposes them to several risks:
- Most messaging apps require the user to enter sensitive personal data, including name, phone number, and date of birth.
- WhatsApp, due to its database of users’ phone numbers, has been used to spread misinformation and false news.
- Your messaging data is stored in the cloud, where it is not encrypted – making it vulnerable to hacking.
- Many applications use your personal data for their own purposes. Facebook is known to share data of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp users with advertisers..
- Governments have carried out global surveillance of citizens with WhatsApp accounts through the use of spyware.
A recent series of high-profile events has highlighted the scale and frequency of the problem:
- In September 2021, the European Union’s privacy watchdog fined WhatsApp €255 million for data-processing and data-sharing violations.
- Telegram, considered the most secure option for WhatsApp, suffered a massive data leak in August 2020 that exposed the personal data of more than 500 million users.
- Personal data, including email addresses and phone numbers, of more than 530 million Facebook Messenger users was stolen by hackers in April 2021.
Furthermore, newer messaging platforms do not effectively address the issue. An excellent alternative to both WhatsApp and Telegram, Signal still uses a cloud-based architecture and allows non-encrypted messages to non-users.
Blockchain is a tue . solution
Instead, a real and viable solution can be found in the power of Blockchain technology. A team of Lithuanian telecom technology experts has recently developed a solution that specifically eliminates all the problems of global messaging platforms. This solution is called secretion.
Secretum is the world’s first and only decentralized encrypted messaging app, built on the Solana Blockchain. It provides users with a secure, hassle-free and direct messaging platform, revolving around the main technological advantages:
- No servers, no moderators and full end-to-end encryption of all messages between users.
- No message data or file storage centrally located or in the cloud – only on trusted and independently verified nodes in the Secretum network.
- Users can register exclusively with their encrypted wallet addresses. No need to share names, dates of birth, or any other sensitive data – in other words, complete anonymity.
In addition to these advantages as a messaging application, Secretum allows users to trade exchangeable and non-fungible P2P crypto assets in a cost-effective manner, bypassing existing exchanges. Regarded as the world’s fastest Blockchain, Solana allows Secretum to take advantage of low gas fees and high block speeds, joining a successful crypto ecosystem of more than 400 projects worldwide.
The result is an app that radically changes the way people communicate via instant messaging, making it safer, more reliable, and more user-friendly than ever.
Secretum has the potential to grow into a well-known, used and globally recognized platform – bringing WhatsApp or Telegram ubiquitous, just without any of the major weaknesses.