I agree that IRC encryption is kind of moot, the issue with IRC is that most channels usually don't enforce SSL-only clients, meaning that you have both encrypt

I agree that IRC encryption is kind of moot, the issue with IRC is that most channels usually don't enforce SSL-only clients, meaning that you have both encrypted and unencrypted traffic going through, effectively making it unencrypted altogether as all it takes is snooping on a single unencrypted client. It's a shame too, honestly with Let's Encrypt being a thing nowadays I feel like IRC networks should be SSL only.