(Credit: Photo Illustration by Anna Barclay/Getty Images)
The next step in Elon Musk's mission to make his social media network into an "Everything" app is here with new messaging features for X.
This all comes under the new name XChat, and it looks to be trying to compete with WhatsApp, Signal, and other messaging apps. This isn't a separate app, however; XChat is now part of the direct messaging features within X, and it's rolling out to users now.
X has long had direct messaging, but it's limited compared with its rivals. New features teased here include vanishing messages, expanded file sharing, and audio and video calling.
The social network has yet to confirm whether all these features will be locked behind the company's subscription model, but so far, they appear to only be available to those who subscribe to X. We weren't able to access these features on a free X account.
As reported by TechCrunch, one user who had early access to the features back in April found they could also turn on a four-digit passcode to help protect their messages further.
X paused its encrypted direct messaging feature last week to begin rolling out these changes. Encrypted DMs have been a part of X for the last two years for those with a subscription. Many other messaging apps offer the security feature as a default to encourage more users.
Musk says encryption in XChat will be better than its previous iteration. "This is built on Rust with (Bitcoin style) encryption, whole new architecture," he tweeted, without elaborating.
Bitcoin doesn't use end-to-end encryption, which is found on messaging rivals like WhatsApp. Instead, Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies use elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and Secure Hash Algorithm 256 (SHA-256) to generate keys for transactions. Cryptocurrency may have inspired the security features within XChat rather than being the exact same feature.