I never really did very much with IRC on a protocol level. I just know that it’s ultra simple, and suffers similar problems as xmpp: it’s not really meant for multidevices with a shared backlog.

I’m sure there are projects to enhance IRC with proper e2e encryption and chat sync, but you really want something that has modern usage in mind from the ground up. IRC and xmpp are just very 90s.

note: it’s now been a couple years since I last took a deeper dive into xmpp and matrix, so things might have changed. But especially for xmpp, I can’t really see how without breaking compatibility. The protocol is just very… special in its own way