At the close of April, Bitcoin.com News covered Amir Taaki’s Darkfi project, a term cleverly shortened from “dark finance.” Darkfi’s mission is to create a foundational layer for anonymous applications and smart contracts. A key feature of the project is the introduction of the first fully anonymous onchain decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with token-weighted voting. According to the project’s manifesto, “Darkfi is a base layer for anonymous applications and smart contracts that aims to be multi-chain interoperable.”

Screenshot shared by Amir Taaki on X.

On Wednesday, the X account Darkfi Squad revealed the release of its anonymous communications network, debuting the pre-alpha version of the Dark IRC user interface (UI). “Dark IRC is the world’s strongest anonymous chat. There is no identity. Messages are unlinked,” Darkfi Squad stated. The X account added:

Free society means free speech. That means all speech. Without limits. Enough is enough!

Darkfi’s IRC release arrives just as Telegram faces pressure from French law enforcement over user content. Telegram recently announced that it would provide IP addresses and phone numbers of suspected criminals to authorities upon request. Darkfi’s IRC platform release is for Linux, Android, Windows, and Mac and the release notes say the app is “Full of bugs. But also full of homemade goodness.”

On Wednesday, Taaki criticized the censorship imposed on developers by authoritarian regimes, stating, “Devs are pushed into secret spaces with their back against the wall.” He further explained the need for anonymity in the face of persecution, referencing the Tornado Cash case, where chats were used as evidence against developers. Dark IRC, Taaki notes, offers a solution with “no identity” and messages sent over a peer-to-peer network, enhancing privacy and security.