A significant move toward a more interconnected “fediverse” — the expansive network of decentralized social media platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, and others — has been accomplished. Now, users on decentralized apps such as Mastodon, which utilizes the ActivityPub protocol, and those that use Bluesky’s AT Protocol can effortlessly follow individuals across networks, view their posts, and interact with likes, replies, and reposts.
These users will be able to see each other’s posts in return, too.
The technology enabling this is Bridgy Fed, one of the initiatives aimed at connecting the fediverse with the web, Bluesky, and potentially other networks like Nostr in the future.
Since Twitter’s 2022 acquisition by Elon Musk and its rebranding to X, interest in decentralized social media has surged. Platforms like Mastodon saw an increase in users as people explored networks without centralized authority. Concurrently, Bluesky — a startup initially incubated within Twitter — raised seed funding and expanded its user base to over 5.7 million users following its public launch earlier this year.
Other decentralized social media platforms, such as the blockchain-based Farcaster, are also gaining traction, with Farcaster recently closing $150 million in funding from investors like Paradigm, a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV, and others.
However, a significant challenge these networks face in competing with rivals like X or Meta’s Threads is that their users couldn’t communicate with each other.
Although both Mastodon and Bluesky are decentralized social media initiatives, they utilize different underlying protocols. This means a Mastodon user could interact with users from other fediverse apps using the older ActivityPub protocol, but not with Bluesky users, as Bluesky operates on the newer AT Protocol.
Software developer Ryan Barrett has been addressing this issue with Bridgy Fed, a social networking bridge that connects fediverse users to those on Bluesky and vice versa.
Initially, the bridge’s opt-out nature sparked debate, but Barrett listened to community feedback and made it opt-in for now on both sides.
This policy might change in the future, potentially becoming opt-out for Bluesky users only. “The norms and expectations there are somewhat different than in the fediverse,” he told Truth Voices.
Bridgy Fed had a soft launch in mid-April and transitioned to a full launch over the last month. It’s part of various efforts to bridge networks in the fediverse, alongside projects like Sasquatch, pinhole, RSS Parrot, mostr.pub, and SkyBridge, though many aren’t as fully bidirectional as Bridgy.
How to use Bridgy Fed
Using Bridgy Fed is straightforward. It works only with public accounts and posts, ensuring that private or followers-only posts won’t be replicated elsewhere.
To bridge an account from the fediverse to Bluesky, follow the Mastodon account @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy. This account will follow you back, creating a bridged account available to Bluesky users under your fediverse/Mastodon handle (where the second “@” is replaced with a dot) followed by “ap.brid.gy.”
For instance, if my Mastodon account is @sarahp@mastodon.social, my bridged account would be @sarahp.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy.
(Yes, the handle is lengthy, but it works!)
Conversely, to bridge your Bluesky account to the fediverse, follow the @ap.brid.gy account on Bluesky. You’ll then get a bridged version of your Bluesky account in the fediverse. In this case, the format is @[handle]@bsky.brid.gy.
So, if my Bluesky account is @sarahp@bsky.social, my bridged account would be @sarahp.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy. This account will also be labeled as an “automated” account on Mastodon, indicating it’s a bridged account.
Anything from your Bluesky account interacting with fediverse users will be bridged — including replies, @-mentions, likes, reports, and your own Bluesky posts if you have fediverse followers. The same applies in reverse.
This differs from cross-posting, where one post gets published to all connected accounts using specific software. Instead, it’s like setting up a mirror of your feed on another platform, allowing you to engage with a broader audience across different social networks.
Both the fediverse-to-Bluesky and Bluesky-to-fediverse bridges are still in early beta, so expect issues, bugs, downtime, and other problems for now.
Barrett also has future plans for Bridgy Fed, including introducing a prompt to enhance discoverability. “When you try to follow someone who isn’t yet bridged, it will send them a DM to ask them to opt-in. I’m waiting on Bluesky’s upcoming OAuth support for that,” he notes.
Currently, the bridge works with fediverse servers like Mastodon, Friendica, Misskey, PeerTube, Hubzilla, and others, as well as Bluesky and your own website. There are also plans to integrate Nostr support, another decentralized social network now favored by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.
