“Important: Google is locking down Android.
Starting Sept 2026, every app — even outside the Play Store — must come from a verified developer.
No more anonymous sideloads. No quick comebacks for malware gangs.
First up: Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand.”
And no indefinite access for illegal and anonymous messaging apps, especially ones with the scary hacker chic graphic design.
Protocols have no utility without apps to leverage them.
You can bury your head in the sand all you want; the facts remain the same. You can’t have a global scale permissionless ecosystem without the explicit permission of Apple and Google.
And if your aim is to change the world, you need global scale adoption to do it. That means unfettered access to be able to have your tools installed on the phones of anyone who wants that tool.
This is true also of bitcoin.
Bitcoin can’t change the world unless easy access to it is made available to billions of users.
Running away from this fact doesn’t make it go away; this fact must be confronted head on and the problem solved.
The only question is this: are you contributing to the solution of the problem or not? Or are you acting as a safety valve giving encouragement to people who don’t really understand the problem, so that they feel good today and divert their energy to something which cannot possibly win in the end and, leave us in a better world.
The Hacker News
Google to Verify All Android Developers in 4 Countries to Block Malicious Apps
Google will verify all Android developers by September 2026 in select countries to curb malicious apps.
