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Once again, the IPv4 demand seems to be following the roller coaster pattern going up and down every month.  However, the delta of the demand decrease in April seems to be showing a positive sign as compared the previous dips over the last 6 – 9 months.

The IPv4 transfer marketplace twists and turns continue to pave the way for what might be an unpredictable year. The last 12 to 15 months have demonstrated a whirlwind of changes, in what was an otherwise a predicable asset class for over 5 years prior.  As we look to the future, we can only hope to expect more predictability we had grown accustomed to from the inception of the IPv4 market.

The six years leading into 2022 have painted a picture of a continuous bull market in the IPv4 industry.  Prices for IPv4 address blocks had an average increase of around 25% every year due to limited availability and increased demand. However, this year has proven that even the IPv4 market can’t always be resilient to economic conditions. 

What are BGP Routing Records? Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a protocol that allows for the fastest and most efficient routing of internet traffic.   The owner of an IPv4 Address subnet asks their upstream internet service provider to route specific IPv4 subnets now smaller than a /24 to route traffic using the best method of delivery.  BGP is responsible for assessing all of the available internet routes that data can travel and then choose the best option, which usually means hopping between Autonomous Systems (AS) numbers that represent the upstream internet providers network.

We are finally seeing some good news on the IPv4 demand front.  As of September 2022, we have 2 months in a row of positive IPv4 demand trends that parallel previous years, prior to the IPv4 crash in May of 2021.  We aren’t out of the woods just yet, however, the indicators could be great for the remainder of the year.

So far, 2022 has shown a stable yet low level of IPv4 demand as compared to the previous three years.  This is largely attributed to a massive increase in demand and the shortage of IPv4 inventory back in 2021, which in turn caused the prices to increase by 100% in just 1 year.

The IPv4 transfer market was born when ARIN, RIPE and APNIC created policy to allow IPv4 address to be transferred from one owner to another.  According to the transfer logs from the three internet registries, there have been over 360 million IPv4 addresses transferred between private parties since 2016

What is IPv4 Geolocation?

IPv4 geolocation maps an IPv4 address to a specific geographic location based on the connected device. By geographically mapping the IP address, any user can determine the country, state, city, zip code, latitude/longitude, ISP, area code, and type of service it is being used for.

While we have had a strong run and increase in IPv4 demand over the previous 3-4 months, October seemed to have slowed down a bit.  The total number of IPv4 transfer requests in ARIN dropped to 143, which is down -16% from 171 requests in September and -12% from the 163 average requests over the course of 2021.

September IPv4 market trends have been very positive compared to what we saw as the average of the previous 3 months. Signs of life from IPv4 buyers are visible based on the increase of IPv4 transfers requested again from 167 in August to 171 in September.