Shane Mac built XMTP because private messaging is controlled by a few corporations. He created a decentralized alternative with built-in encryption where users own their messages through private keys, not platforms. XMTP lets developers combine secure messaging with crypto infrastructure.
Chapters
Why did I decide to work in Web3? I didn't decide to work in Web3. I was obsessed with solving a problem that was our communication and our most intimate and private part of our digital lives was owned by a few major corporations. And powerful people. And something so foundational and fundamental to every single person's life on Earth shouldn't be owned by one single company. XMTP stands for Extensible Message Transport Protocol, which, if you've used email, it's built on SMTP, Simple Mail Transport Protocol. So it's very much a playoff of that. But the extensible part means that developers and users can do a lot more with it, and it comes with encryption. So the difference between, say, an email network where everyone can work together openly in a global way is that XMTP has world-class encryption built into the core. It allows people for the first time ever to be able to own their communication with their own private key, not be dependent on a centralized platform or a big tech company. It is also a platform for developers to be able to combine secure and decentralized messaging with all of the innovation and infrastructure of the global financial rail that is crypto. Web3 can change how we communicate and interact with each other by getting us out of these closed networks and these centralized companies that have killed all the innovation of our communication over the last 10 years. I think it's important for everyone in the world to realize that your messages are yours. And this would have never been possible without Web3.
