Does Bitcoin still use the IRC channel?

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I recently read an article on Bitcoin Media, that claimed:

Jeff Garzik pointed out that Bitcoin-Qt no longer operates using the IRC bootstrap, and on inspection he’s right. This mainly applies to older versions of bitcoin.

Implying that the IRC channel is no longer used by Bitcoin-QT. Is this true, and if so, which version of the standard Bitcoin client was the first not to use the IRC channel?

ThePiachu

Posted 2012-04-20T16:45:11.390

Reputation: 41 594

Answers

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The IRC bootstrapping method is deprecated and default off since the 0.6 release. It's still implemented and can be enabled using the -irc command line option.

The function of the IRC bootstrapping system will get replaced by DNS seeding and peer exchange, however.

Pieter Wuille

Posted 2012-04-20T16:45:11.390

Reputation: 54 032

And the dns seed can be disabled using: "Don't bootstrap list of peers using DNS" -nodnsseed

Related: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Client_Node_Discovery#Discovery_Methods

– Stephen Gornick – 2012-04-22T01:24:10.627

is there a more in depth description of dns seeding and peer exchange available? – osmosis – 2012-04-25T17:15:06.783

Asked: 2012-04-20T16:45:11.390

Viewed: 1 348 times

Active: 2012-04-20T22:01:44.360