How private are your messages?
It’s a serious question. Even though many of the most popular messaging apps are now end-to-end encrypted, recent events have shown that there may still be risk involved. In the UK, the government is demanding access to encrypted messages from the likes of Apple, WhatsApp, and Signal. The US government has reportedly looked into claims that WhatsApp may not be as secure as claimed; while users of Proton and Signal have recently been subjected to individual targeting by hackers.
Even if individual messages can’t be read, metadata can reveal vital information; the hacking group Salt Typhoon, for example, reportedly targeted millions of Americans’ data in part by harvesting locations and phone numbers.
Keet takes a different approach. The communications app is entirely end-to-end encrypted, and runs on a peer-to-peer protocol, so there are no servers or third parties required. Developed by Holepunch and cofounded by Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of market-leading stablecoin Tether, and Mathias Buus, Keet is built to exchange data directly between participants using holepunching technology, which sets up an efficient, tamper-proof connection between devices. Keet doesn’t use a phone number or login, but a 24-word seed phrase, like a crypto wallet, making it more secure. Users can then add other contacts, send messages, conduct one-to-one and group video calls, and transfer files of any size, without the need to rely on cloud servers or logins.
Keet is built using Pear Runtime, Holepunch’s privacy-focused peer-to-peer stack, designed to let anyone build seamless peer-to-peer applications. Other apps built on the platform include password manager PearPass, location sharing app WhereFam, and Tether’s own QuantumVerse Automatic Computer or “QVAC” AI apps QVAC Workbench and QVAC Health, which are using the platform to build open-source, peer-to-peer AI that is trained and runs on device, instead of massive centralized (and therefore less secure) server farms.
As well as private messaging, Keet enables peer-to-peer and group video calls, as well as broadcast rooms; Holepunch has already declared its intention to introduce direct Bitcoin transfers to the app, as well as on-device AI features such as translation, in the near future.
“We developed Keet for maximum resilience, unstoppable communications, and finance,” says Ardoino. “Because if you have financial freedom but not freedom of speech, you are not really free. That’s why our goal is to make Keet one of the most widely known and respected communication applications in the world.”
With more and more of our digital activity subject to surveillance or targeting by hackers, secure messaging is growing in importance, whether you’re protecting your financial details, business transactions, or simply personal correspondence. It’s also getting harder, in a market where a few small tech giants control the majority of digital infrastructure. According to Ardoino, Tether and Holepunch’s efforts reflect an alternative movement: one where data and compute happens not in a centralized cloud, but on individual devices. That means greater control, greater freedom—and greater security.
