DataReportal’s 2026 mid-year report found 93.6% of online adults use chat apps or messenger platforms each month. WhatsApp users open the app more than 20 times per day on Android and spend an average of 59 minutes per day inside the app.

Payments have followed the same mobile pattern. The World Bank’s Global Findex 2025 found 79% of adults worldwide now have a financial account, while 84% of adults in low- and middle-income countries own a mobile phone, and 3 billion have smartphones.

This creates a product opening for private chat-based payments. People already use messaging apps to coordinate dinner bills, creator support, gifts, small business payments, and peer-to-peer transfers, but the final payment often requires a separate wallet, app, address, invoice, or custodial account.

Radar Chat, a new open-source messaging app from the team behind Cake Wallet, brings Bitcoin Lightning payments into encrypted private chats. It’s giving users a way to send sats from the place where payment requests often begin.

(Note: Bitcoin Lightning sats or Satoshis are tiny fractions of BTC used for fast, cheap payments on the Lightning Network.)

Available on iOS and Android from July 7, the app lets users open a chat, enter an amount, and send Bitcoin over Lightning while keeping custody of their funds. Payments settle in less than 1 second, keys stay on device, and fund control remains with the user.

Encrypted Messaging Meets Self-Custodial Bitcoin

Radar Chat focuses on payments with social context. Splitting dinner, gifting sats, supporting creators, and paying someone back can happen inside the same private chat where the request appears.

Use of the Bitcoin lightning network gives the app fast settlement, while self-custody keeps the user in control of keys and funds. 

Radar Chat is free to use and open source, with an ad-free and tracker-free model designed for users who care about privacy in both communication and payments.

Messages, payments, contacts, notes, and balances remain private, including from Radar Chat itself, according to the team. The app’s open source code also gives developers and privacy-minded users a way to examine how the product works, an important point for a tool handling both messages and payments.

Radar Chat was built around Bitcoin principles such as self-custody, privacy, verifiability, censorship resistance, and permissionless payments. The product aims to reduce friction while keeping users in control of their funds.

Why Chat-Based Payments Fit Bitcoin

Bitcoin payments often begin inside a private chat before becoming a transaction. One person agrees on an amount, confirms the purpose, sends or receives an invoice, completes the payment, and returns to the chat to confirm receipt.

Chat already contains the context around many peer payments:

• Bitcoin is peer-to-peer by design: Private chats already connect the two people involved in a payment, making them a natural place to agree on an amount and send sats.
• Lightning works best for frequent small payments: Chat-based transfers suit dinner splits, tips, creator support, gifts, and quick repayments.
• Self-custody needs easier daily use: Radar keeps keys on device while placing the payment step inside a familiar messaging flow.
• Circular economies depend on coordination: Bitcoin communities need tools for earning, spending, planning, and confirming payments in one private space.

“Radar helps remove friction from payment coordination, peer-to-peer transfers, creator support, and day-to-day Bitcoin spending,” said Seth for Privacy, COO of Radar Chat.

Radar Chat was built by the team behind Cake Wallet, a self-custodial wallet trusted by nearly 2 million people, according to the company.

 The app launches on iOS and Android on July 7

Source: BeInCrypto