No identity tax
No password, phone number, email address, legal name, contact upload, ads, or public user directory is required to use the hosted beta.
Private Matrix messaging beta
degenerates
A hackable vision for private messaging.
Private messaging should be inspectable, portable, and built around people instead of platform lock-in. People should not have to trade phone numbers, contact books, ad profiles, or a permanent social graph just to talk. degenerates is a passkey-only hosted Matrix beta for invite-first rooms and quieter conversations.
No required phone or email
Invite-first rooms
Hackable Matrix base
Manifesto
Messaging should belong to people, not platforms.
The default social-app bargain is broken: give up identity, contacts, attention, and portability for the right to communicate. degenerates starts from the opposite premise. Every person deserves private coordination on their own terms: intentional discovery, opaque accounts, and infrastructure that can stay inspectable, portable, and upstreamable.
No ambient discovery
Accounts use opaque Matrix IDs and user-chosen display names. New chats start from invite links, QR codes, or exact IDs.
No sealed black box
The hosted app uses Matrix infrastructure for rooms, sync, media, push routing, and launch validation. The long-term direction is public upstream work, not a stale source dump.
Where this is going
Private should still mean hackable.
The hosted app is the first useful path, not the end state. The public repo should become the real upstream, the private hosted overlay should stay small, and compatible-server work should become credible without pretending arbitrary Matrix servers work on day one.
Real exit rights
Room export, forkable-room proof, and recovery UX are post-private-testing bets because privacy is weaker when the exit path is theoretical.
Upstream-first development
Product work should flow through public code, tests, docs, and contribution paths before the hosted overlay deploys it.
Compatible servers over time
The next credible step is a Degenerates-compatible contract for auth, invites, media, push, and room capability discovery, not a vague server picker.
Built by ORIA
degenerates is developed by ORIA OU.
ORIA OU develops degenerates as a privacy-first messaging product, with the hosted beta at degens.agency and the longer-term goal of public upstream usage and hackable Matrix-based infrastructure. Learn more at oria.agency.
Beta reality
Clear limits before broad access.
Current beta limitations
Message-history recovery, signed-device checks, and device-verification UX are still under launch validation. Some older room history may be unrecoverable after device loss, reset, leave/rejoin, or missing room keys. There is no user-facing device-verification flow in this beta.