ICP’s OpenChat Makes Cross Platform Chatting Easier

Internet Computer (@dfinity) $ICP -based OpenChat (@OpenChat) now lets Discord (@discord) and Telegram (@telegram) communities relay messages directly into its decentralized chat app. The update is aimed at letting decentralized communities reach people who still use mainstream messaging platforms.

How the relay and linked accounts work

The feature relays messages between those platforms and OpenChat. Users connect their accounts through a new "Linked accounts" section in their profiles. After linking, messages appear in OpenChat under their own identities rather than under a bot's name.

OpenChat's public development repository gives more detail on how this works. A user can link a Discord or Telegram account from their profile, and messages relayed from that account then show as theirs on OpenChat, with their name and avatar, still carrying the platform's badge. On desktop the option sits in a "Linked accounts" card, while on mobile it appears on a new "Linked accounts" page in App settings.

The code also sets some limits. A user can link one Discord account and one Telegram account, not several of either. Switching accounts means unlinking first. Developers describe the work as the first step towards two-way Discord and Telegram bridges. A separate bridge bot project notes that reactions and threads are not yet relayed, and that Discord attachments become links, which Discord expires after a while.

Background on OpenChat

OpenChat is a decentralized chat application running on the Internet Computer blockchain, with direct messages and private groups like WhatsApp and Signal, public groups like Telegram, and communities similar to Slack workspaces or Discord servers.The app is open source and runs as a collection of canister smart contracts. It was created by developers Matt Grogan and Hamish Peebles, who described it in an early DFINITY post as a decentralized messaging service that runs end-to-end on a blockchain.

The relay feature addresses a practical adoption problem for on-chain social apps: many communities already organise on Discord and Telegram, and moving them wholesale is difficult. Letting those groups stay where they are while their conversations are mirrored into OpenChat lowers that barrier. Whether it translates into more active users on OpenChat will depend on how widely communities adopt the bridge bots.

Sources

OpenChat GitHub: Let users link Discord or Telegram accounts from their profileOpenChat Bots GitHub: Add the Discord bridgeDFINITY on Medium: OpenChat, a decentralized alternative to WhatsApp