Jack Dorsey-Backed Decentralized Social Network Bluesky Gets 30,000 Signups in 48 Hours

Bluesky, the decentralized social network initiative backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has already received 30,000 signups over the past 48 hours – and that’s just for its waitlist.

The company opened its waitlist on Tuesday and said in a tweet that it will be "rolling out invites to the private beta in stages” due to “overwhelming interest.”

Bluesky wants to build a "social internet" and help users avoid data silos that most commonly exist across internet applications. Its soon-to-be-released app is built on a decentralized social media protocol called the Authenticated Transport Protocol, or “AT,” which is aimed at making social media open source and interoperable, allowing users to interact with different applications, all within one ecosystem.

“The World Wide Web wouldn’t have been much fun if it was created without a browser, and the same is true of the AT Protocol,” the company said Tuesday.

Dorsey first announced that Twitter was funding a team to develop a "decentralized standard for social media" in December 2019.

In August 2021, Twitter chose crypto developer Jay Graber to be the lead at Bluesky, making it entirely separate from Twitter. In May, the protocol released the first iteration of its AT protocol ahead of beta testing trials.