BitTorrent is building a product that allows you to talk to your friends using peer-to-peer messaging apps. Chat uses a distributed hash table to find IP addresses. The DHT removes the need for a central server to route messages. With Chat, we are expanding on what we can use the DHT protocol to support encryption. Chat is the method we use to translate a public key to an IP address. This means that, if you want, you can use Chat without telling anyone who you are.”]
Source: https://engineering.bittorrent.com/2013/12/19/update-on-bittorrent-chat/