The Matrix open network for decentralized communication has announced a record growth of 79% in the past 12 months, now counting more than 60 million users.
This is an important milestone for a project driven by a small team of developers and volunteers working to provide a secure and private alternative to modern messaging and collaboration options.
Accelerated growth
According to a press release shared with BleepingComputer, the Matrix decentralized messaging network has added a record 25 million users to its services in the past year, which was mainly the result of three events.
First, the popularity of the Element app started to take off as individuals and corporate entities looking for a secure collaboration platform are now recognizing the advantages of the project against mainstream products.
Secondly, Germany’s entire healthcare system decided to adopt Matrix last summer, which will see over 150,000 organizations in the country gradually migrating to the standard.
Thirdly, Rocket.Chat announced in May 2022 that it would start supporting the Matrix protocol giving its 12 million users the option to communicate with other users through the wider Matrix network.
“Matrix’s new milestone, surpassing 60 million users, is a clear sign that users don’t want to be subjected to advertising-funded messaging apps that data-mine their information,” Matrix co-founder and CEO Matthew Hodgson said in an email.
A decentralized open standard is the most sensible and viable way forward for communications, in the same way that HTTP underpins the web. It empowers users and providers with interoperability, security and data ownership. All parties have their own control and choice.
Moving forward
The next milestone the Matrix team has in sight is to reach 100 million users. The project believes this could be achieved by making the protocol even more technically alluring.
They plan on implementing the following features:
- Decentralized E2EE video conferencing: Matrix already supports VoIP for small groups and is currently building out to scale to hundreds of concurrent users.
- Peer-to-peer Matrix: turning devices into servers to create a pure P2P network, making Matrix even more distributed and resilient.
- Third Room: a decentralized, open source metaverse platform built entirely on top of the Matrix protocol. Third Room will enable people to discover and create virtual worlds for collaboration, all while protecting their privacy and retaining ownership over their data.
If you would like to test out Matrix yourself, the best way to get started is through Element, picking the suitable version for your platform on the official download page.
