Bitcoin Core v0.12.0 was just released. From the release notes, Starting with Tor version 0.2.7.1 it is possible, through Tor's control socket API, to creat

Bitcoin Core v0.12.0 was just released. From the release notes, Starting with Tor version 0.2.7.1 it is possible, through Tor's control socket API, to create and destroy 'ephemeral' hidden services programmatically. Bitcoin Core has been updated to make use of this. This means that if Tor is running (and proper authorization is available), Bitcoin Core automatically creates a hidden service to listen on, without manual configuration. Bitcoin Core will also use Tor automatically to connect to other .onion nodes if the control socket can be successfully opened. This will positively affect the number of available .onion nodes and their usage. This new feature is enabled by default if Bitcoin Core is listening, and a connection to Tor can be made. It can be configured with the -listenonion, -torcontrol and -torpassword settings. To show verbose debugging information, pass -debug=tor https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.12.0.md#automatically-use-tor-hidden-services https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-n...