What Is Bluesky? The Decentralized Social Media Rival to Elon Musk's X – Decrypt

Social media platform Bluesky is commonly touted as a substitute for X (previously Twitter), and considered as a competitor to the tech large.

Nevertheless, its underlying structure is sort of completely different—the place X is a single firm with a siloed ecosystem, Bluesky is predicated on a decentralized infrastructure.

Right here’s the way it works.

What’s Bluesky?

Bluesky is a decentralized social media platform based mostly on the authenticated transport (AT) protocol.

The essential underlying concept behind decentralized social media platforms is that customers ought to have the ability to personal their very own knowledge, and migrate to completely different servers, of which Bluesky is just one amongst many.

Whereas it’s been portrayed as a competitor to X, Bluesky can really hint its roots again to the social media platform. In December 2019, Twitter introduced that it was funding an unbiased workforce to work on an open and decentralized social media customary.

On the time, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey expressed a need for Twitter to ultimately be a consumer (person) of the usual that Bluesky was engaged on.

In August 2021, it was introduced that Jay Graber, previously a developer for privateness coin undertaking Zcash, could be helming the Bluesky workforce and its initiatives going ahead. In February 2022, Bluesky turned a very unbiased group following the formation of its Public Profit LLC.

In October 2022, the iOS Bluesky app was introduced to notable fanfare—with its waitlist receiving roughly 30,000 signal ups in two days.

Following its beta launch in February 2023, Bluesky launched on Android in April 2023 earlier than totally opening to the general public in February 2024, having amassed some 3 million customers because it launched in beta. Inside 24 hours of its public launch, Graber claimed that 550,000 new customers had signed as much as the platform. An extra inflow of recent customers got here in September 2024, when some 2.6 million customers joined the platform in per week after X was banned in Brazil.

Within the wake of the U.S. presidential election in November 2024, Bluesky noticed one other development spurt, with over one million new customers becoming a member of the platform within the week following the election, and utilization of its app rising by over 500% versus the primary 10 months of the yr, in keeping with SimilarWeb. In keeping with social media researcher Axel Bruns, Bluesky presents a “refuge” for “the extra liberal form of Twitter neighborhood.”

By late November, Bluesky’s person numbers within the U.S. had overtaken these of Meta’s rival social media platform Threads, surging previous 20 million. As of March 2026, Bluesky has over 43 million customers, the place Threads claims to have some 150 million day by day energetic customers as of January 2026.

In March 2026, Graber introduced that she was stepping again as CEO of Bluesky and transitioning to the function of Chief Innovation Officer, handing over the reins to former Automattic CEO Toni Schneider as interim CEO.

Days later, Bluesky disclosed that it had accomplished a $100 million Collection B funding spherical in April 2025, led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Anthos Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Knight Basis and True Ventures.

In a press release, the agency mentioned that the funding could be directed in the direction of constructing out “the way forward for the open social internet with out compromising our mission and values.”

The Bluesky person expertise

Bluesky as an app seems to be largely modeled on X itself, with options together with feedback, likes, and reposts. This consists of how these posts, replies, and the feed itself are visually offered to Bluesky customers. Whereas there are some variations, they’re largely minor (a publish character restrict of 265 as an alternative of 280, for instance).

These similarities have grow to be extra obvious with every new replace, as Bluesky has added options together with direct messaging, GIFs, video, livestreaming badges and cashtags.

Novel options embrace the power to create customized feeds (of which extra later) and “starter packs,” a set of personalised invitations that allow customers to advocate customized feeds and customers.

Bluesky additionally permits customers to dam different customers, hiding their posts and proscribing their means to work together with you. In August 2024, Bluesky launched a set of “anti-toxicity options” together with the power to detach posts from quote posts and conceal replies.

Whereas the Bluesky person expertise (UX) is acquainted to X customers, others level out that you have to look under the surface-level UX to know why the platform could possibly be a social media gamechanger.

Bluesky’s progressive networking expertise: AT Protocol

Whereas the UX and the options of Bluesky resemble X to a major diploma, the important thing aim of Bluesky isn’t aesthetics, options, or the UX. Certainly, the chief aim wasn’t even to create a decentralized X competitor; superseding all of those goals was the need to create a decentralized social community protocol that could possibly be utilized by anybody. Known as authenticated transport (AT) protocol, that is the expertise upon which Bluesky is constructed.

Whereas Bluesky is the primary main launch on AT protocol, the expertise is open and accessible to be used by any person, developer, or firm (in a lot the identical means anybody can construct on a public blockchain like Ethereum). Because of this others might create their very own social media platforms utilizing AT protocol expertise. Even X might doubtlessly be run on AT protocol, as Jack Dorsey had hoped, though with its change of possession this can be a much less doubtless state of affairs.

Thanks to those options, many see the AT protocol, quite than the Bluesky app, as the important thing innovation. Whereas Bluesky will get all of the headlines, the AT protocol might essentially change the social media panorama in ways in which aren’t merely technical or summary (extra on that later). The AT protocol is an amalgamation of decentralized applied sciences (however not a blockchain writ giant). In essence, the AT protocol would allow the creation of not a single social community, however a federation of social networks that would work together with one another.

AT protocol permits new methods for customers to transparently talk with one another. At a technical degree, this could will let you self-host the servers of your individual firm, profile, or social media platform. That is in stark distinction to present social media platforms the place the self-hosting of servers and knowledge merely isn’t potential.

The aim of such a design is to safe person knowledge and make the person platform expertise proof against affect from firms, governments, and different centralized entities. As Bluesky’s head of development Emily Liu put it, the corporate’s motto is that “the corporate is a future adversary,” including that, “if bluesky ever tried pulling humorous enterprise, customers can simply pack their baggage (take all of their knowledge and relationships with them) and transfer to a distinct server.”

AT protocol has the power to place customers in charge of their knowledge and the way it’s used (or not used). Whereas having the ability to host your individual servers is an choice, customers that don’t wish to run their very own servers can merely delegate a number of their selecting and use Bluesky like every other social media app.

What Bluesky and AT Protocol imply for social media customers

Within the present panorama, main social media platforms (X, Fb, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube) are largely siloed ecosystems that don’t work together with one another. In case you are on a number of social media platforms, you doubtless have completely different followers, pals, and content material—and think about completely different content material. And in case you don’t like a social media community you might be utilizing, you don’t have a whole lot of good choices. When you can all the time use an app much less, cease utilizing it, or discover an alternate, it will probably usually be a tough option to make.

When you determine to depart, you usually end up in a smaller ecosystem than the one you left. Additional, you usually have to start out over by creating a brand new account, including new pals and followers, and so forth. Past that, you could discover that most of the individuals you wish to interact with don’t use these social media alternate options. No matter your purpose for disliking a platform or sure facets of it (over/underneath moderation, the algorithm, knowledge privateness, censorship, and so forth), customers usually proceed to make use of these platforms resulting from an absence of viable alternate options and the headache related to ranging from scratch on a brand new social community. With AT protocol, one key function is the power to port over a social media profile to a different community—with out dropping the important thing knowledge and social contacts you worth.

For instance, to illustrate you could have a Bluesky account with a username deal with, lots of of contacts, messaging historical past, and so forth. If for some purpose you didn’t like how Bluesky was working, you possibly can merely port over your complete account to a Bluesky different that’s constructed on the AT protocol and proceed as if nothing modified. This solves one of many main ache factors of leaving and becoming a member of social networks.

To not say that you’d essentially wish to go away Bluesky, nevertheless, because it permits for an excellent diploma of customization and person management not accessible on different social media platforms. One aim of Bluesky is to revitalize clear and public dialog on social media by tamping down on the disinformation and authoritarian manipulation generally discovered within the digital social media panorama.

Bluesky’s objectives information its improvement

In a lot the identical means that the web is public infrastructure accessible to all, Bluesky’s workforce desires the social media layer to even be frequent infrastructure by way of their AT protocol framework.

“We wished this to sometime be the final social identification you’ll ever must create as a result of you’ll be able to transfer it in between apps and providers,” Bluesky’s then CEO Jay Graber mentioned in a March 2024 interview. “You’ll be able to take your identification and your relationships and your knowledge with you. And in order that’s the underlying protocol layer.”

They wish to see an “evolution from platforms to protocols.” Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin as an unbiased blockchain protocol; Bitcoin (BTC) wouldn’t be despatched through wire switch or a bank card community; it wanted a very new technological framework. In a lot the identical means that Bitcoin decentralized foreign money, Bluesky’s workforce desires to decentralize—and revolutionize—social media. With the interoperability baked in, your social media contacts and interactions are saved intact. In a lot the identical means you can now swap your crypto pockets and preserve your crypto, AT protocol will will let you swap social media platforms and preserve your contacts (in a comparatively painless method).

Bluesky’s trifecta of goals is: belief, scale, and portability. The aforementioned means emigrate your social community contacts and deal with to a competing community includes the portability element. If you wish to go away a community (or it goes offline through chapter or technical points), you don’t wish to lose all the things. Simply as you’ll be able to change your smartphone supplier with out dropping your quantity, Bluesky envisions this identical portability for social community profiles. Whereas altering your supplier with out dropping your cellphone quantity appears pure now, you really did lose your quantity when altering suppliers previous to 2003 within the U.S. Whereas cellphone quantity portability required a Federal Communications Fee ruling, Bluesky is enabling portability by way of the non-compulsory adoption of its AT protocol-powered app.

In addition they need Bluesky to allow conversations at a worldwide scale. Whereas some decentralized networks do a very good job of giving customers management and transparency, lots of them can solely operate easily and reliably as smaller on-line communities. They envision a social community that may deal with the worldwide conversations of centralized social media websites whereas preserving the liberty and choices offered by an open protocol.

Maybe most desired by social media customers, Bluesky desires to reestablish belief. Utilizing cryptography, Bluesky customers can confirm the authenticity of content material that was created by different customers—guaranteeing that they created the content material themselves. One other function is the power to make use of a site identify (a web site tackle) as your username. That is one other means you’ll be able to construct belief and confirm your self to different customers—and vice versa.

AT Protocol’s algorithmic selection and moderation instruments

One other level of rivalry that sows mistrust on the massive, centralized social media platforms widespread at the moment is how their proprietary algorithms form public discourse and curate your social media feed.

In maybe one among its most praised options, Bluesky presents “algorithmic selection.” This lets you see how an algorithm operates, modify it, or just select to make use of a distinct algorithm. The open-source nature of the undertaking permits builders and customers to introduce their very own bespoke algorithms; many various algorithmically generated feeds are already reside, encompassing all the things from posts by furries to posts by accounts that comply with you, to posts about moss.

Whereas algorithms themselves have largely been written off as social media manipulation, Bluesky doesn’t see algorithms as the difficulty, however quite the shortage of transparency and management of those algorithms as the key shortcoming of centralized social media choices.

If you’d like a easy chronological timeline algorithm, that will probably be an choice. For those who need one thing completely different, an open “market of algorithms” will permit customers to decide on which algorithm they wish to use—and swap algorithms at will (very like now you can freely swap cellphone carriers). The truth is, customers can swipe between their favourite algorithms or view a multi-algorithmic feed. These algorithms are searchable, permitting you to search out new algorithms, share them, and even publish your individual algorithms that others can use.

Whereas algorithmic selection will largely allow you to determine what you see, Bluesky’s imaginative and prescient for moderation will decide what you don’t see. Bluesky sees “composable moderation” as a key function of their social app. Whereas there’s a primary default moderation filter, customers may also change it, or layer in customized filters that may work in tandem with one another. Finally, this moderation would have parts which might be executed robotically and in addition manually by way of both community admins or by the neighborhood itself.

The way forward for Bluesky and decentralized social media

Bluesky is one among plenty of completely different decentralized social media platforms which have gained traction following Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, together with Nostr, Mastodon and Threads. Every takes a distinct method to decentralization; Mastodon and Threads help the rival ActivityPub protocol, for instance.

Different social media platforms have leveraged blockchain, together with Farcaster and Lens Protocol.

Bluesky and its AT protocol appear to carry promise as a two-pronged different and resolution (app and decentralized protocol) that would ameliorate the critiques aimed on the centralized social media behemoths.

Nevertheless, Bluesky’s 43 million-strong person base, whereas rising, is small in comparison with the social media behemoths it is difficult; X has over 404 million day by day energetic customers as of Q2 2025, for instance. Bluesky has attracted funding, although; in mid-2023 it raised $8 million in a seed funding spherical, with an additional $15 million raised in October 2024 and a $100 million Collection B increase in April 2025.

Whereas it is too early to find out if most decentralized social media will largely be on the blockchain or just use technological facets of decentralized networks, many predict that the social media panorama will more and more grow to be extra clear, versatile, and open as we transition from a Web2 to Web3 paradigm.