Technology1 min read

How to Create Your Own Decentralized Messenger Protocol

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The architecture uses domain-based user identities to help external servers locate the correct hosts across the network. Systems discover counterparty details by querying a standard metadata endpoint to confirm protocol compatibility before transmitting data. Under this model, the initial scope focuses strictly on single-device direct text communications rather than complex collaboration tools. Security is enforced through domain verification techniques and client-side encryption that restricts private key access to individual user hardware.

Key points

  • Independent server operators can establish interoperable communication nodes using domain…: Independent server operators can establish interoperable communication nodes using domain-based user naming conventions.
  • Standardized configuration metadata endpoints enable automated discovery and protocol ver…: Standardized configuration metadata endpoints enable automated discovery and protocol verification between disparate hosts.
  • Client-side encryption ensures private cryptographic keys remain exclusively on user hard…: Client-side encryption ensures private cryptographic keys remain exclusively on user hardware rather than intermediate servers.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Let's say you want to create a system where each server can "join" a network and start exchanging something with other members within that network. How would you approach such a task? You could create a small centralized orchestrator that will accept join requests and handle that for the recipients, but that's not decentralized. What if we want a truly "plug and play" solution without any centralized servers? One such solution is federation.

What is federation

A good example would be SMTP (the protocol for sending emails). It's mostly decentralized. Anyone can run their own mail server. There is no single central authority that says "yes! this server can have email, but that one? NOOO!". Each server communicates using a well-known protocol and exchanges information server-to-server. You can even call it an "API with known payload schemas", although that is a bit of a simplification.

Let's go with the email thing and start with the obvious. Have you ever considered why email addresses contain an @<domain>

part? Why can't it just be my_nick

?

It's necessary to know which domain…

Technology