diff --git a/defaults/config.js b/defaults/config.js
index f84196e9..22312601 100644
--- a/defaults/config.js
+++ b/defaults/config.js
@@ -109,6 +109,17 @@ module.exports = {
 	//
 	lockNetwork: false,
 
+	//
+	// Hex IP
+	//
+	// If enabled, clients' username will be set to their IP encoded has hex.
+	// This is done to share the real user IP address with the server for host masking purposes.
+	//
+	// @type     boolean
+	// @default  false
+	//
+	useHexIp: false,
+
 	//
 	// WEBIRC support
 	//
diff --git a/src/client.js b/src/client.js
index 77db906b..c5d8aaee 100644
--- a/src/client.js
+++ b/src/client.js
@@ -260,7 +260,7 @@ Client.prototype.connect = function(args) {
 		host: network.host,
 		port: network.port,
 		nick: nick,
-		username: network.username,
+		username: config.useHexIp ? Helper.ip2hex(client.ip) : network.username,
 		gecos: network.realname,
 		password: network.password,
 		tls: network.tls,
diff --git a/src/helper.js b/src/helper.js
index d4af765f..68e88919 100644
--- a/src/helper.js
+++ b/src/helper.js
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ var _ = require("lodash");
 var path = require("path");
 var os = require("os");
 var fs = require("fs");
+var net = require("net");
 var bcrypt = require("bcrypt-nodejs");
 
 var Helper = {
@@ -15,6 +16,7 @@ var Helper = {
 	setHome: setHome,
 	getVersion: getVersion,
 	getGitCommit: getGitCommit,
+	ip2hex: ip2hex,
 
 	password: {
 		hash: passwordHash,
@@ -75,6 +77,23 @@ function getUserLogsPath(name, network) {
 	return path.join(this.HOME, "logs", name, network);
 }
 
+function ip2hex(address) {
+	// no ipv6 support
+	if (!net.isIPv4(address)) {
+		return "00000000";
+	}
+
+	return address.split(".").map(function(octet) {
+		var hex = parseInt(octet, 10).toString(16);
+
+		if (hex.length === 1) {
+			hex = "0" + hex;
+		}
+
+		return hex;
+	}).join("");
+}
+
 function expandHome(shortenedPath) {
 	var home;
 
diff --git a/src/server.js b/src/server.js
index f4ed7c72..f77a3748 100644
--- a/src/server.js
+++ b/src/server.js
@@ -148,6 +148,10 @@ function init(socket, client) {
 		});
 		client.clientAttach(socket.id);
 
+		if (!client.ip) {
+			client.ip = getClientIp(socket.request);
+		}
+
 		socket.on(
 			"input",
 			function(data) {
diff --git a/test/tests/hexip.js b/test/tests/hexip.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..255903c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tests/hexip.js
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+"use strict";
+
+const expect = require("chai").expect;
+const Helper = require("../../src/helper");
+
+describe("HexIP", function() {
+	it("should correctly convert IPv4 to hex", function() {
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("66.124.160.150")).to.equal("427ca096");
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("127.0.0.1")).to.equal("7f000001");
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("0.0.0.255")).to.equal("000000ff");
+	});
+
+	it("unsupported addresses return default", function() {
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("0.0.0.999")).to.equal("00000000");
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("localhost")).to.equal("00000000");
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("::1")).to.equal("00000000");
+		expect(Helper.ip2hex("2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946")).to.equal("00000000");
+	});
+});