Bluesky is temporarily stopping registrations because so many people are participating via Twitter

Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter-like social network, is “temporarily” pausing new logins to fix performance issues it experienced after Twitter introduced limits on the number of tweets you can see per day. While you still need an invite code to join Bluesky, it seems that the influx of new users has been a problem.

“We will be temporarily pausing Bluesky logins while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues,” Bluesky wrote in a message. “We will update you when invite codes become functional again. We are excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!”

An image of Bluesky’s message.
Screenshot of Jay Peters / The Verge

from Bluesky status page currently says the platform is experiencing “degraded performance,” with the first reported issues at 1:47 p.m. ET. “Deteriorated performance” feels like an accurate description – on the web I can usually still get messages to load, although it often takes a very long time. Things seem a bit smoother to me on the iOS app.

At 2:03 p.m. ET, Bluesky said in a post that it is experiencing “record high traffic.” It’s also pushing mobile app updates to fix things, according to Bluesky engineer Paul Frazee.

Twitter’s troubles first surfaced on Friday when the platform began blocking unregistered users, which owner Elon Musk claimed was a “temporary emergency measure” because it “looted data so often” that it affected ordinary users. On Saturday, Musk announced new limits on the number of tweets users can see per day.

Mastodon is also apparently seeing a big spike in users. According to to one trackerthe platform has seen more than 26,000 new accounts in the past day.