I have a quite more technical question regarding how Monero nodes (and other P2P networks) work.
The question is: Once you start your node for the first time, or after it being shut down, how does the node find the first P2P peer?
I get that torrents for instance use trackers for this. But how does Monero (or other cryptos) do it?
I am guessing Haveno does the same thing? ie: Haveno is essentially connecting to two P2P networks at the same time, namely the Monero and the Haveno networks. What tech does Haveno use to find the first peers? Is it related to the seed nodes?
How does Monero do it without seed nodes?
As shortwavesurfer noted monerod also utilizes seed nodes. The user is able to specify their own seeds with the --seed-node flag. It’s also possible to add other nodes with --add-priority-node or --add-peer
You can find more p2p documentation at https://docs.getmonero.org/interacting/monerod-reference/#p2p-network
The Monero Network also has seed nodes, hard-coded into the software. If you issue
monerod --helpyou can see syntax for using a custom bootstrap node if you wish
