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Bluesky launches group chats for up to 50 users and outlines a shift to Reddit‑style communities, aiming to boost engagement after growth slows to 44.8 million
Bluesky rolled out group chat functionality that supports up to 50 participants and announced a roadmap for “communities” with custom handles, signaling a strategic pivot as its registered user base plateaus at 44.8 million [1]. The move aims to deepen engagement by giving users more control over smaller, interest‑based spaces.
Key takeaways
The new group chat feature lands with version 1.124 of the Bluesky app. Chat creators decide who may join, can generate invite links that appear as cards in posts, and can restrict invitations to everyone, only followers, or no one. While the current release does not yet allow media sharing, Bluesky indicated that additional safety and moderation tools are needed before enabling that capability [1].
Alongside the chat launch, Bluesky’s head of product Alex Benzer outlined plans for “communities,” smaller spaces where users can explore shared interests more deeply. Each community will receive its own handle that also serves as a URL, and they may be set to public, invite‑only, or private modes. These spaces will be built on the open AT Protocol, leveraging contributions from the broader developer ecosystem [1].
Bluesky’s growth has stalled at 44.8 million registered users, a stark contrast to X’s 600 million monthly active users and the larger audiences of competitors like Threads [1]. By introducing group chats and community handles, Bluesky is betting that tighter, user‑controlled spaces can compensate for slower user acquisition, offering a differentiated value proposition—ownership of moderation rules and open‑protocol flexibility—that larger platforms do not provide. The success of this pivot will depend on whether the platform can foster enough critical mass within its communities to sustain active discussion, a challenge highlighted by the comparison to Reddit’s thriving sub‑reddit model [1].
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AI-assisted synthesis by the TrendWatcher Editorial Desk · sourced from 2 outlets · Jun 11, 2026 · How we report
Group chats are currently limited to 50 participants and do not yet support media sharing due to ongoing development of safety and moderation systems.
Communities will be smaller, interest-based spaces within the platform that feature their own handles, which serve as URLs, and can be set to public, invite-only, or private.
The shift is a strategic response to growth challenges, aiming to offer a different value proposition by providing user-owned spaces where moderation is handled by the community rather than the platform.