A year ago, the irreverent X/Twitter competitor Bluesky captured lightning in a bottle. The decentralized social app quickly attracted over 2 million users during its closed beta testing and sparked excited chatter across newsrooms. But in recent months, the decentralized social networking buzz has centered around ActivityPub, the open protocol behind Mastodon and other emerging platforms – not Bluesky’s homegrown alternative known as the AT Protocol.

This week, Bluesky is ready to claim the spotlight once more. The plucky startup is removing its invite-only system, opening up registration to anyone interested in trying the platform. Later this month, Bluesky also plans to start allowing external developers to host their own servers on the AT Protocol, providing custom experiences that users can opt into while bringing their profiles and feeds between different apps on the network.

According to Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, the team needed time to build out moderation features and stabilize infrastructure before exiting closed beta. Since launching last year, Graber says Bluesky has fielded over 3 million sign-up requests. The hope now is that some fraction will convert to active users, allowing Bluesky to find a niche as a conversation hub for a mainstream audience.

As a public benefit company with just under 40 full-time employees, about half of whom focus on moderation and support, Bluesky is betting it can chart a different path than traditional, profits-first social platforms. Graber reports the app currently has 1.6 million monthly active users and 25,000 custom feeds that let people curate wildcard content around niche interests like moss photography.

The “experimental rollout” of the AT Protocol to developers in the coming weeks will be gradual, says Graber. “I think we’re going to start off with a sort of slow roll, rate limit things, make sure that the network doesn’t change overall overnight.” Over time, the goal is for outside developers to run their own servers with custom rules.

To eventually make money, Bluesky plans to charge users for premium features, take a cut of custom feed subscriptions, and offer enterprise server management tools. And rather than controlling the AT Protocol indefinitely, Graber wants to transfer oversight to a standards body like the IETF in the long run. She’s also open to someday connecting with ActivityPub.

“It’s a time of experimentation,” says Graber. With social media giants now embracing decentralization after years of resistance, upstart networks see fresh opportunities. Though ActivityPub may be ascendant today, Bluesky believes there’s ample room for its alternative vision to find a niche in what increasingly looks like the next era of social technology.