Pravica, a Cairo-based decentralized messaging and communication product developer, is planning to launch Bitcoin Ordinals on its platform, its CEO Mohamed Abdou said.

Pravica has named the new feature “Eternal Messages,” Abdou told Nodo News in an interview. A practical example is having a conversation with legal implications. Two or more parties can agree to put the conversation on the chain as evidence, he said.

Bitcoin Ordinals protocol enables users to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain. The protocol has created quite a buzz over the last few months and could see a new use-case for the blockchain.

“We can take a piece of the message and put it on-chain forever,” he said. “Think about business offers. You can make it immutable,” Abdou explains, adding that this would be an easy way to implement smart contracts through the platform.

Abdou demonstrated to Nodo News on Pravica’s platform that a user can switch the chat into ‘Eternal Messages’ with the consent of all parties.

“If you start an ‘Eternal Message’, there is some mirror data: Your address, the other person’s address, the timestamp, and content. Then you can publish it using a smart contract,” he states.

Accessing the Application

Pravica can be accessed through the web interface. You will need a MetaMask Wallet or a Hiro Wallet, which can be downloaded as web extensions. MetaMask is a crypto wallet developed by New York-based ConsenSys. On the Pravica Club page, users can add, search and view friend requests. Users can also create clubs which are like chat groups.

The Club feature was announced in February 2023 as a way to create safe communities on the platform.

“It is designed to empower Web3 communities to connect and collaborate in a safe and private environment,” Abdou said during the announcement on Pravica’s Discord channel.

The platform is self-custodial, meaning the data lives within your device. It ensures that Pravica does not hold your details.

Pravica is still working on mobile applications for the platform. Early testers can access the test flight version for the iOS network. “We are changing the full UI to meet the Pravica Club identity and will push it to the public side once finished,” Abdou says.

A Safe, Chain Agnostic Messaging Platform

Privacy was a key impetus in creating the application, which is a chain-agnostic platform, according to Abdou. Over 45,000 users can benefit from the stringent security measures, missing in major Web2 messaging platforms.

End-to-end encrypted chats between you and one other person have their group key used to verify that the messages you send to that chat are end-to-end encrypted.

Another privacy issue in messaging apps is spam. The product, Abdou says, ensures that you are connected to the receiver before you send any message. This means that you cannot receive “unsolicited” messages such as spam.

Pravica enables users to send each other crypto tokens right within chats, which makes security a priority.

Achieving Blockchain Interoperability

Overall, Web3 messaging as a whole has not evolved. “Some of them work in one blockchain ecosystem,” Abdou says. “There is no blockchain interoperability here. If you are coming from Ethereum you should have a MetaMask wallet to talk to you.”

Abdou explains that other Web3 messaging services lack a unified data layer, while others are not fully decentralized. The fragmentation of the Web3 messaging platforms can hinder its growth. “It’s not scalable,” Abdou says.

After achieving blockchain interoperability, the plan is now to support multiple chains to make Pravica universal.

–Edited by Faustine Ngila