Private Key Storage

Under the normal logic of end-to-end encryption, XChat's private keys are stored locally on your device rather than uploaded to X's servers. That means your device holds the material needed to decrypt messages, not X Corp.

On iPhone, sensitive keys are often protected by additional OS-level security, especially through the Secure Enclave. XChat has not publicly said how deeply it relies on that hardware isolation, but it is the natural place to look for stronger local key protection.

The direct consequence of local key storage is that history is harder to move between devices. If the old device holds the keys and the new device does not, you cannot simply sync old conversations the way you would in a conventional cloud chat app. That is why backup and restoration in E2EE products tends to be much more complicated.