@wojtek I disagree, as we do not know if it is a markdown formatted message or someone just sent some text that is parsable and formattable as markdown. This could lead to the removal of some characters, ie. from logs, lists, etc. so it is​ better to keep those formatting chars.

Fair enough.

Wasn't there a XEP trying to address that though?

Yes, there was some XEP in progress, but as Markdown is human-readable, I've decided​ to just put it in body element without any additional changes.