Towns is a group chat protocol and app designed to help online communities build better hometowns on the internet. Towns enables members of a community to truly own their town squares and communicate freely, with a fully decentralized, end-to-end encrypted chat protocol that is owned by the people. Towns gives communities the power to create programmable, self-governed gathering spaces for communication. Any group can use Towns to assemble and chat freely in a space tailored to their needs, without having to worry that some organization will change the rules, make money from their activity, or take away their rights.