When a wave of users fled X for Bluesky after the 2024 U.S. elections, the decentralized social network looked like it might finally have the momentum to challenge the incumbent. Nearly two years later, the picture is more complicated. According to new data from digital intelligence provider Similarweb, Bluesky’s mobile app had 10.4 million monthly active users worldwide in June 2026—a 27.2% drop year-over-year. More tellingly, mobile daily active users fell 25.6% in July to roughly 3 million, extending a decline that has now erased more than half of its post-election highs.
But for those following Bluesky closely, the declining app engagement isn’t the only story. The company’s new CEO, Toni Schneider, appears to be steering the organization away from the simple “X competitor” model toward a broader ambition: building an ecosystem around the AT Protocol. The question is whether that strategic pivot can justify the loss of an audience the company fought so hard to acquire.
The Data Tells a Story of Erosion
While Bluesky continues to add registered accounts—the company’s public stats show nearly 46 million total sign-ups—the gap between registrations and actual activity is widening. This suggests a significant number of users created accounts during the 2024 hype cycle but never integrated Bluesky into their daily routines.
Similarweb’s data provides a stark timeline. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Bluesky’s quarterly average of monthly active users peaked at around 22.1 million. By the second quarter of 2026, that average had fallen to 10.7 million—a decline of approximately 52%. The decline isn’t just the normalization of a post-election bump; it’s a sustained erosion that has continued long after the initial surge subsided.
There is, however, one bright spot in the engagement metrics. Bluesky’s stickiness rate—the ratio of daily to monthly active users—was roughly 29% in June, comparable to Threads. This indicates that while the overall audience is shrinking, the users who remain are relatively engaged and active. It’s a smaller pond, but the fish in it seem committed.
The CEO’s Vision: Protocol Over Product
For Toni Schneider, who took over as CEO of Bluesky earlier this year, these numbers might not be the primary concern. In interviews and public statements, Schneider has emphasized that the company’s long-term success doesn’t hinge solely on the success of the Bluesky app itself. Instead, the goal is to make the AT Protocol the foundation for a growing number of social apps, services, and communities.
This is a risky but defensible strategy. The AT Protocol is designed to enable interoperability between different social applications, allowing users to move their data and social graph across platforms. In theory, this creates a more open and competitive ecosystem than the walled gardens of X or Meta. In practice, it means Bluesky is betting that the value of the protocol will eventually outweigh the value of the flagship app.
That bet is starting to show some early returns. Projects like BlackSky and Eurosky are building on AT Proto, and the video-focused app Skylight has found early traction, suggesting there is genuine developer interest in the infrastructure. The company has also launched new products, including Attie, an AI-powered research tool, and is working on adding support for private data, which could eventually attract users more interested in private networking than the public square.
Editorial Analysis: A Pivot That Undermines Its Own Base
Here is where the editorial perspective becomes crucial. The core problem with Bluesky’s strategic pivot is that it risks sacrificing the very asset it needs to make the protocol valuable: a large, active user base. A protocol is only as useful as the applications built on it, and those applications are only as attractive as the network effects they can leverage.
By deprioritizing the growth of the flagship app, Bluesky may be making a philosophical bet that the market doesn’t fully support. History has shown that open protocols often struggle to compete with integrated platforms in terms of user experience and ease of use—consider how Mastodon struggled to pull users away from X despite offering similar ideals. The failure to maintain momentum on the app-level could create a feedback loop: fewer users on Bluesky make the AT Protocol less attractive to developers, which reduces the supply of third-party apps, which in turn makes the protocol less valuable.
It’s a gamble that might pay off if a third-party app becomes a breakout success. But for now, Bluesky is asking its remaining users to accept a smaller, less vibrant community in exchange for a promise of future ecosystem growth. That’s a difficult tradeoff to sell, especially when competitors are aggressively expanding their feature sets and user bases.
What This Means for Users and Developers
For average users, the decline in active users on Bluesky means a less dynamic feed, fewer conversations, and less incentive to check the app regularly. This creates a vicious cycle where lower engagement begets lower engagement. If users don’t see their friends or the creators they follow posting regularly, they’ll drift away—which is precisely what the data shows is happening.
For developers, however, the picture is more nuanced. The AT Protocol’s open nature offers a genuine alternative to the dominant platforms, and Bluesky’s commitment to building infrastructure could lower the barrier for creating niche social applications. If you’re a developer looking to build a social app without needing to reinvent the entire network stack, AT Proto offers a compelling starting point.
The addition of private data support could be a game-changer in this regard. Historically, Bluesky has been a public square, similar to Twitter. Adding the ability for private posts and communities would open up use cases that are currently dominated by Discord, Slack, or private Facebook groups. This would attract a different type of user and developer, potentially offsetting the loss of casual public users.
The Competitive Landscape: X and Threads
One of the more interesting takeaways from the Similarweb data is what isn’t happening. Some might assume that Bluesky’s decline means users are returning to X, but the data suggests otherwise. X’s worldwide monthly active users on mobile were down around 3% year-over-year in June, and its mobile daily active users dropped 7% in July to 123.7 million. X’s web visits are growing, but the mobile app appears to be stagnating.
Instead, the real beneficiary of Bluesky’s struggles might be Threads. Meta’s Twitter alternative has been steadily growing, with daily active users up 21.3% year-over-year to 147 million in July. Its website visits were up a staggering 112% year-over-year. It’s unclear whether Threads is directly poaching disaffected Bluesky users or simply attracting a new cohort of users who are curious about Twitter-like services but want a more polished, centralized experience.
What is clear is that the market is consolidating around two polar opposites: X, with its massive but slowly eroding user base, and Threads, which is capitalizing on Meta’s distribution power. Bluesky, by contrast, is betting on a third path that doesn’t rely on capturing a massive user base in the traditional sense.
What Happens Next
The next 12 months will be critical for Bluesky. The success of its protocol-first strategy will depend on whether third-party apps built on AT Proto can generate enough interest to compensate for the flagship app’s decline. The introduction of private data features could be a key catalyst, potentially opening up new use cases that the centralized platforms don’t serve well.
For now, the company is in a holding pattern. It has a committed core of users, a growing developer ecosystem, and a clear strategic vision. But vision and execution are two different things. The numbers suggest that while the vision may be sound, the execution is struggling to maintain the audience that would make that vision a reality.
Bluesky is at a crossroads. It can either pivot back toward aggressively growing its flagship app, or it can double down on being an infrastructure provider. The data indicates that its current strategy is resulting in a shrinking user base, which could undermine its long-term ambitions. If the company can’t convert its technological vision into tangible user growth, it risks becoming a niche product rather than the open alternative to the social media oligopolies it seeks to disrupt. The core challenge for Bluesky’s new leadership is whether it can build a viable future on a shrinking foundation.
