The seeds that go into enabling secure communication between profiles are very different from what Lens API has built thus far, so to deliver the feature and all that comes with it, we are embracing our composable roots and building with XMTP. This represents a big step forward for Lens API, bringing the Web3 social experience closer to feature parity with its Web2 predecessors.

XMTP (Extensible Message Transport Protocol) is a messaging protocol that has been thoughtfully designed to bring secure communication to Web3. XMTP enables fully end-to-end encrypted messaging between blockchain accounts such that only the participants of a message would be able to decrypt and read messages. Participants in a conversation can also be guaranteed that the profiles they’re communicating with are genuine, and their messages authentic, which will also help to combat some of the scams prevalent in today’s social networks.

Beginning today on Lenster.xyz, users will be able to send private and secure direct messages to one another. We look forward to seeing more applications adopt XMTP across the growing Lensverse. In the coming months, direct messaging will be added to the new Lens SDK as we believe it’s critically important to enable developers to build with these new features.

In building with XMTP, Lens direct messages offer several benefits for users, content creators, and developers alike:

• Communications aren’t siloed—a Lens profile’s messages are always available in any other front-end that supports XMTP

• All messages are end-to-end encrypted and can only be decrypted by your wallet address

• Messages are sent off-chain and do not incur any gas fees

• Lens apps will be able to build direct message experiences for Lens users, where they will have control over the interface, filtering, and other functionality

• Like Lens, XMTP does not use any wallet private keys anywhere, ensuring that communications are kept separate from assets

Not only does this protocol offer a litany of perks for our community, but XMTP is also fully-aligned with our commitment to decentralization and composability. This makes the protocol a natural choice for enabling Lens DMs and we can’t wait to see it roll out across the Lensverse in the coming months.

Read more in the developer docs here: https://xmtp.to/lens-quickstart