IPv4 Transfer Swing March 2022 – Are the Bulls Coming?

After a long 10 months with ARIN transfer requests only around 135 per month, we are starting to see signs of life.

In March of 2022, the total ARIN transfer requests increased to 172, which demonstrates an increase in demand of over +27% as compared to the previous 10-month average.  This swing in transfer requests is timely, as many people were starting to wonder if prices were going to start to fall due to decreased interest and demand for IPv4 addresses globally.

While this is only one month of growth showing no real pattern, it is still important to note that the previous 5 months have all been less volatile and more in the range of 130 – 140.  Therefore, this has broken the clearly dismal trend which was consistent for an extended period of time. However, we are still slightly below the normal average of 198 transfer requests leading into the IPv4 market crash in May of 2021.

Are the bulls coming?

So, what does this mean for the prices of IPv4 subnets moving forward?

It is also interesting to note that March seems to always have a significant increase in transfer requests in the past years.  For instance, in 2021 we saw an increase from 173 transfers in February to 242 in March, demonstrating a +39% increase in demand.  In 2020, the transfer requests increased from 138 in February to 171 in March, showing a +24% increase.

These spikes in March could be attributed to some organizations requirements to deplete Q1 budgets in order to get the same amount of money the following year.  Our analysts believe it may have to do with the U.S. Government’s commission of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).  This provides billions of dollars in government funding to internet services providers and network operators to build network into underserved communities.

As of March 2022, the United States Government has already awarded over $1.2 billion to many organizations and will likely unleash over $3 billion overall in 2022.  More on the RDOF story to come…

Based on previous years of data, we have noticed many network operators begin to purchase IPv4 addresses in large quantities in Q2 and Q3 as the RDOF funds would be awarded.  We anticipate seeing the same trend this year.

If you have spare IPv4 subnets and have been thinking of selling, this might be a great time to re-address and get ready for a potential payday.

If you are a network operator and anticipate growing your network before end of year, this is a good time to stock up and purchase IPv4 addresses.

The April transfer request data will play a critical role in shaping the market and the IPv4 prices for the remainder of the year.