Finding and Replying
Pull a bottle from the stream, read what someone left, and leave a short reply that travels on with it.
The other half of Bottle Drop is finding what other people have dropped in. Bottles drift through the stream; you pull one out, read the message inside, and - if it moves you - leave a few words that ride along with the bottle for whoever finds it next.
Finding a bottle
Reading the stream is always open. You do not sign in to drift through it. Tap any bottle floating past and it opens, showing:
- The message - what the sender dropped in, and who it is from (or "Anonymous")
- Any replies left behind - the trail from everyone who has found it before you
- A space to leave your own reply
Each bottle you open is a small window into a stranger's message and the quiet conversation it has gathered on its way to you.
Leaving a reply
A reply is short - up to 128 characters - and it is for the next person who finds the bottle, not a private message back to the sender. It becomes part of the bottle and drifts on with it.
You can write your reply before signing in - the draft is open to everyone and survives the sign-in window. You are only asked to sign in at the moment you actually send it. Leaving a reply is a collect: it costs a small amount of sats from your balance, shown before you send, and those sats go to whoever dropped the bottle - the same way readers pay you when they leave replies on yours. After it lands, the bottle drifts back into the stream carrying your words, and your reply appears in your logbook. (New to sats? How Earning Works covers what you earn and spend.)
Why leaving a reply is more than a comment
This is the protocol's feedback capability at work. When you leave a reply, you are not adding a row to a comment thread on a server somewhere - you are keeping a numbered, permanent record of this bottle with your words attached to it. The reply is yours, it is on-chain, and it stays readable on the bottle no matter what happens to the app.
That is what lets a bottle gather a real trail. Every finder who leaves a reply keeps their own permanent piece of that bottle's journey, and the whole trail travels on together - a small chain of strangers who all found the same message and left something for the next one.
Replies accumulate
A bottle is never "used up." It can be found again and again, and each new reply joins the ones before it. A message dropped in today might, over time, carry a dozen replies from a dozen people who never met - each one left for whoever the current carries the bottle to next.