Bluesky, the decentralised social network that gained millions of users after Elon Musk's takeover of X, is now seeing its mobile app usage shrink significantly nearly two years on. Data from digital intelligence firm Similarweb shows monthly and daily active users have fallen sharply, suggesting many people who joined in the post-election exodus from X have not stuck around, while the app's usage has continued declining even beyond that initial surge. The company's new leadership appears less concerned with the app's own growth, instead prioritising development of the underlying AT Protocol to power a wider ecosystem of apps and services.

Bluesky's mobile app had 10.4 million monthly active users worldwide in June 2026, down 27.2% year-on-year, while daily active users fell 25.6% to around 3 million in July. This marks a decline of roughly 52% from its late-2024 peak of about 22.1 million monthly users. Despite the drop, remaining users are relatively engaged, with a stickiness rate of about 29%, similar to Meta's Threads, which by contrast grew its daily active users by 21.3% year-on-year to 147 million in July. Bluesky's CEO, Toni Schneider, is focusing on protocol-level growth through projects like BlackSky, Eurosky and Skylight, alongside new products such as the AI research tool Attie and forthcoming private data features.