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@ Marc
2025-05-10 22:01:36XMMP is a protocol that allows journalists and plebs alike to create a phone number that is not tied to your identity. Why would you want to do this? Are you some kind of hacker? Well… yeah… we are hackers, technically. That doesn't mean we want to break the non-aggression principle and steal sats from OGs or anything. Perhaps it's better to call ourselves cybersecurity experts to placate neurotypical people.
Every Bitcoiner worth their sats knows phone numbers are a security hole. Sure, if you're a super cypherpunk with a 100% KYC-free stack or never intend to spend your “precious,” then this might not concern you. You can sell your sats on Bisq for paper cash trash and pay your water bill or whatever. It's a significant inconvenience, but I know some people who do this. Satoshi bless them! But the rest of us mere mortals find it easier to use bill-pay services with Strike. Unfortunately, the powers that be force us to use our telephone numbers as a de-facto identity system.
This phone number must be trusted to a third party, and as Nick Szabo famously said, "Trusted third parties are security holes." This guy I go pleb camping with thinks it's funny that Bitcoiners never want to give away their phone numbers. It's true because phone numbers create an attack surface—specifically, they may be used for SIM swaps to drain our Bitcoin bank accounts or the associated traditional bank accounts. This is not the only attack. Smishing is also a concern, but that threat requires diligence since anyone using SMS is susceptible to it. XMMP won't prevent smishing; however, it will provide a phone number people can use to text or call without tying the number to your identity. Thus, even if attackers somehow compromise this phone number, it can't be used to drain your accounts.
What Is XMMP?
XMMP is a protocol that functions similarly to cellular phone service on almost any device with internet access. I don't think it'll work on a Kindle, but to be honest, I haven't tried. XMMP can be used alongside your existing phone, laptop, and desktop computers. You can safely give this phone number to all your hardcore hacker friends without worrying. It's affordable too—the service costs \$5.00 per month, and the service I use accepts sats for payment. Though this doesn’t include data, you can easily use XMMP over Wi-Fi.
If you want a separate phone running GrapheneOS or CalyxOS, you can pay for data in multiple ways. Personally, I like Silent Link—it's run by a fellow pleb and accepts sats via the Lightning Network.
How To Set Up XMMP
If you identify as a non-technical person, you can buy a phone and suite from Above Phone*, which will help you set everything up. I'm more of a DIY-as-much-as-I-can kind of guy, so I opted to set mine up myself. I haven't personally tried Above Phone, but I've heard good things about their service.
If you already have a phone but want a secure method to call or text your contacts, here's what to do:
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Install Cheogram on your Android phone. Sorry, but I don’t know if Apple's overlords allow this for iOS devices.
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Choose a phone number with JMP. They charge \$5.00 monthly and accept Bitcoin as payment. While you could port your current phone number, the purpose of this article is to create a fresh, anonymous phone number that cannot be traced back to you as an instrument for draining your bank account—so we won't get into porting here.
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Once you've paid, you will receive a message in the Cheogram app confirming your order. It might take some time since payments are on-chain—so be patient. You can also pay with a credit card if you prefer, but we use sats in this household.
How To Get Data
You might occasionally want to send messages away from 127.0.0.1. My favorite solution is to use the services provided by Silent Link. They offer an eSIM, and while you can also get a phone number from Silent Link, it's mainly useful for services like Signal. However, it costs around \$20 worth of sats per month rather than JMP's \$5/month. Assuming all Bitcoiners are cheapskates like me—well, you do you!
I chose Silent Link's data plan. Initially, I messed up this process because I refreshed the webpage on my phone. Don't do that, or you'll have to spend another twenty bucks to set it up again. If you carefully follow Silent Link's instructions, you should be fine. Patience is crucial, and admittedly, that's something I'm not good at—which explains why I paid more sats than needed.
/* Above Phone is an affiliate link and I may get a small commission if you use my referral link.
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As seen on https://zapthisblog.com/save-sats-with-on-sms-and-cellular-with-xmmp/
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