Frequently asked questions

Rhize is a social network with two layers. The public layer is standard Bluesky — open posts, open follows, open discovery. The private layer is end-to-end encrypted content that only the people you've added to a circle can read.

Rhize is built on the AT Protocol, the same open protocol that powers Bluesky. Your public posts live on Bluesky. Your Bluesky handle works here. Your followers come with you. The private layer is an additional capability Rhize adds on top.

A Circle is a private group you define. You decide who's in it. Posts shared with a Circle are end-to-end encrypted so only the people in that Circle can read them. You can have many Circles — one for family, one for close friends, one for coworkers — and the same post can be shared with one or several of them.

Group chats are for back-and-forth conversation. Circles are for sharing — photos, posts, thoughts — with a chosen audience, the same way you'd post publicly but limited to specific people. Circles are also one-directional: you control who's in yours; they don't have to reciprocate.

Yes. You can react to anything on the public timeline inside a Circle instead of the open thread — discuss it with your people without broadcasting your opinion to the internet.

Private content is encrypted on your device before it's ever sent. The decryption keys only exist on the devices of people you've shared with. Rhize's servers and Bluesky's servers store the ciphertext but cannot read it.

No. We never have the keys to decrypt them. That's enforced cryptographically, not by policy.

Private content is encrypted before it leaves your device. Whatever path it takes — Bluesky PDSes, Rhize's servers — it's ciphertext everywhere except on the devices of your chosen recipients.

They immediately lose access to future posts in that Circle. The encryption key is rotated so anything new can't be read with the old keys. Posts they already downloaded before being removed can't be un-seen — that's a fundamental limit of sharing — but nothing going forward is readable to them.

No ads. No behavioral profiling. No algorithmic feed optimizing for engagement. The business model doesn't depend on watching you.

Rhize's invite-only beta is launching soon. Join the waitlist and we'll reach out as invites open up.

The invite-only beta will start small, to keep the group close-knit while we refine the product. As it grows, members will get invite codes they can share with people they trust. Growth is network-driven, not ad-driven.

Rhize is free to use for all, with premium features to enable us to stay independent and not rely on ads, behavioral tracking, or attention extraction.

It means half of Rhize's profit — what's left after the cost of building, running, and supporting the app — goes to organizations working on digital privacy, human and civil rights, and the environment. The other half is what lets Rhize grow, so there's more to give over time.

So the figure is measured after costs, and we publish the arithmetic each year: what came in, what it cost to run Rhize, what was left, and where our half of it went.

It isn't a marketing campaign we can quietly retire. Rhize is a Public Benefit Corporation, so the mission is part of the legal structure the company is accountable to.

Recipients are chosen against the three commitments in our charter — privacy, people, and planet — and we publish the list rather than describing it in the abstract.

Every year we publish what we made, what we gave, and where it went. A pledge nobody can check is just a slogan, and the rest of this site is built on claims you can verify.

No — Rhize uses AT Protocol identity, so you can sign in with any AT Protocol handle or domain, not just a Bluesky one. If you don't have an AT Protocol handle yet, creating a Bluesky handle takes a minute and you can use it here.

They come with you. Your public posts and follows on Bluesky remain exactly what they are today. Rhize adds the private layer; it doesn't replace the public one.

No. Identity comes from your AT Protocol handle. Email is optional and used for waitlist signup and Beta test communications, but may be required by Bluesky if you want full access to all of the features on their app. We do not require it for use of Rhize. No phone number is required.

If you're still signed in to Rhize on a device, you can see your recovery phrase in Settings, or replace it with a new one.

If you've uninstalled the app or lost your device, you'll need your recovery phrase to get your private content back. Without it, your Circles, private posts, and received messages can't be recovered — by you or by us. That's intentional: if Rhize could recover your private content, Rhize could also read it.

Your public Bluesky account is unaffected. Your handle, public posts, and follows are tied to your Bluesky password, which you can recover through Bluesky as usual.

Keep your recovery phrase somewhere safe, like a password manager or on paper in a secure place.

Yes. Rhize is multi-device by design. You don't pair devices or sync keys between them manually; your encrypted keys already live on your Bluesky PDS, and any device can unlock them once you sign in with your Bluesky account and enter your Rhize recovery phrase.

Sign in on your phone or tablet the same way you'd sign in on your existing one. Every Circle, contact, and past message is available.