Keychat

Over the past few hours, some Keychat users may have noticed several strange messages like the one shown in the screenshot — “null invalid HMACtrack: decrypt failed” — when sending messages in a large group. Our current suspicion is that someone was spamming NIP-17 messages to the receiving address subscribed to by the large group. Those messages were received by the group, but failed during decryption, which led to the error shown in the screenshot.

We’re happy to see that users understand and appreciate the design of Keychat Mini Apps — combining web apps, public key login, and a Bitcoin wallet. BTW, we plan to add a Public Agent alongside Mini Apps later on. 📝 103a95fb…

We want the overall design of the Keychat protocol to be easy for anyone to understand, not just developers. 📝 17002f87…

Through the mail analogy, you should now find it easier to understand what the Keychat protocol actually delivers: self-sovereign identity, end-to-end encryption with forward and backward secrecy, metadata-resistant addressing, decentralized transport, and a free market for message delivery where ecash stamps turn relays into competing post offices — sovereign communication. nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpwleyw4fy3sxt7yvgrran0mpenxqlululur94r9jlax0hd3q3rc7qq24g6jndymxjd6wtae4qnjxvycrwsm2t93x2kucza7

Attaching a Stamp (Client → Relay) When publishing an event to a relay that requires stamps, the client appends a Cashu token as the third element of the EVENT message array: ["EVENT", <event JSON>, "<cashu_token>"] 📝 5dbf57b5…

We are close to completing the development of libkeychat. libkeychat is to the Keychat protocol what libsignal is to the Signal protocol. After libkeychat is released, users should be able to quickly build their own clients using Pi agent, Claude Code, or Codex. 📝 ae94a307…

Keychat protocol is a sovereign messaging stack that integrates five layers: Identity — Nostr keypair, self-custodial with no server dependency Transport — Nostr relay network, open and self-hostable Encryption — Signal Protocol for 1-to-1 and small group chats, MLS for large group messaging Addressing — Receiving and sending addresses are decoupled from identity and continuously rotate Stamps — Cashu ecash tokens attached to messages as anonymous micropayments to relays 📝 3c0a2da0…

https://github.com/keychat-io/keychat-protocol/blob/main/…

This NIP defines a mechanism for clients to attach ecash tokens (Cashu) to Nostr events as stamps — anonymous per-event micropayments to relays. Stamps solve two fundamental problems for the Nostr relay ecosystem: spam prevention and relay sustainability. https://github.com/keychat-io/keychat-protocol/blob/main/…

We now have two clients that speak the Keychat protocol and work seamlessly with each other. More independent clients are coming. 📝 a7da0432…

Maybe agents will adopt sovereign messaging before humans do. Humans are still locked into big-tech chat apps by network effects and habit, while agents can switch to open, self-sovereign protocols much faster. Then humans may end up learning from agents—gradually moving to sovereign messaging themselves. It’s a strange inversion. 📝 a7da0432…

Keychat treats human users and agent users the same. 📝 7c7d3b5f…

An agent needs the same things a human does from a messaging app: • A sovereign ID — self-generated, not registered on any third-party server • A sovereign relay network — freely chosen, not platform-locked • End-to-end encryption — message content stays private • Metadata protection — minimize what observers can learn • Pay-per-use eStamps — because there’s no free lunch 📝 7c7d3b5f…

In the past, everyday users really only had two “computers”: a phone and a personal computer. Neither is always online, which is why infrastructure-style services—like a Bitcoin node, a Lightning node, or a Nostr relay—have long been out of reach for most people. It’s not just about installing them; it’s about maintaining them over time. OpenClaw changes that by turning a server into a third computer for ordinary users: an always-on, hostable personal server. More importantly, agents on OpenClaw can handle installation, upgrades, monitoring, and troubleshooting—automating away the ops burden that used to be the biggest barrier. As the number of node types keeps growing, everyday users finally get their own “ops assistant,” letting them manage nodes and services as easily as managing apps.

After installing the Keychat plugin on OpenClaw, a public key ID is automatically generated for the agent. Users can simply add the agent as a friend through Keychat on their phone—an interaction that feels natural and intuitive. Unlike Telegram or Discord, there’s no need to apply for a platform-issued Bot ID and manually configure it inside the agent. By using a sovereign messaging app like Keychat, agents gain not only a smoother, more intuitive user experience, but also true autonomy. After all, who wants their agent to depend on a bot ID issued by a platform? 📝 7c7d3b5f…

If you run multiple agents on OpenClaw, the Keychat plugin will generate a public key ID for each agent (derived from the seed phrase). 📝 7c7d3b5f…

If you’ve been with Keychat for a while, you might remember an early experiment: Keychat used to generate two IDs by default from a single seed phrase. One was for chatting with human friends. The other was simply named “Bot” — for chatting with agents. At the time, we shipped two lightweight Q&A agents. You paid per answer in sats, and they replied. But the real idea was bigger: anyone should be able to create an agent, run it as a public service, and earn sats — in a user-sovereign messaging network where humans and agents can talk, trade, and collaborate. Conversation as a service. That vision didn’t stick back then for one simple reason: OpenClaw didn’t exist yet. Building an agent was still too hard for most users, so we paused the feature. Now OpenClaw changes the equation. It makes building and running your own agent dramatically easier. Today it’s mostly used for personal assistants — but we think public-facing agents won’t be far behind. That’s why we’re bringing this direction back with the Keychat plugin: enabling human ↔ agent chat, and also agent ↔ agent chat, all inside the same user-owned network. Close your eyes and picture it: a user-sovereign network, slowly growing — one agent, one conversation, one service at a time. 📝 7c7d3b5f…

You can now use Keychat as a channel for your OpenClaw agent. Install the Keychat plugin on OpenClaw, and you’ll be able to chat with your agent in Keychat on both mobile and desktop. Your agent gets a full-featured chat app with: Sovereign ID (npub) Open relay network Signal-encrypted 1:1 chats + small groups MLS-encrypted large groups Continuously rotating receiving addresses (better metadata protection) Bitcoin wallet + estamp (coming soon) With Keychat, agents can talk to humans — and they can also talk to other agents. Keychat treats human users and agent users the same. --- Setup takes just a few minutes. In any existing channel (Telegram, Discord, webchat, etc.), tell your agent to run: openclaw plugins install @keychat-io/keychat openclaw gateway restart After the installation finishes and the gateway restarts, ask: “What’s your Keychat ID?” Your agent will reply with: Keychat ID: npub1… Keychat ID link: https://www.keychat.io/u/?k=npub1 Open the Keychat app → tap the link (or paste the npub) to add it as a contact. Ownership rule: the first person to add the agent becomes its owner. Any later contact requests require owner approval. --- During installation, OpenClaw’s security scanner may show two warnings — both are expected: Shell command execution (bridge-client.ts): launches a Rust sidecar used for Signal Protocol and MLS encryption. Shell command execution (keychain.ts): stores identity mnemonics in your OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Linux libsecret). https://keychat.io/ https://github.com/keychat-io/keychat-openclaw 📝 5f8f01e0…

A quick preview. 👇

Keychat’s Public Key ID and Bitcoin Wallet unlock four layers of value for agents: 1. In-app capability (Keychat-scoped)
 The ID and wallet exist solely to power Keychat’s built-in messaging experience. 2. Agent infrastructure (shared primitives)
 Exposed via RPC, they become agent-wide primitives: any channel, skill, cron job, or sub-agent can sign messages and send/receive sats. At this layer, the ID and wallet belong to the agent—not just to Keychat for Agent. 3. Agent network (A2A encryption + payments)
 When Keychat runs on every agent instance, agents can communicate end-to-end and settle payments directly with one another. 4. Unified human–agent network (same protocol, equal peers) 
Keychat for Agent and Keychat for Human share the same protocol, so humans and agents are true peers: encrypted communication and native payments in both directions.