There are strong indications that the prices of IP addresses may increase by 100 percent in the next five years, owing largely to the depletion of IPV4 resources, Heficed, an IP marketplace service provider has predicted.
Heficed believes that this increase in price will turn the remaining IPv4 resources into a tradable commodity and creating a newfound demand for IP leasing services. Recall that IPv6 is not yet market-ready, which increases the price of a single address by 35 percent, reaching prices up to $20-25 per IP.
“Since the IPv4 market is scarcity-driven, it poses a real challenge for businesses looking to scale their operations, especially in foreign markets. The available resources are rapidly depleting. If the trend continues, over the next five years we could see a drastic increase in IP pricing, perhaps even doubling its current market value,” said Vincentas Grinius, CEO of Heficed.
The shortage of IPv4s and continuously increasing prices has raised the public’s demand for IP leasing services. As acquiring the necessary IP addresses can be an expensive endeavor, leasing can provide a cost-efficient and timely solution for businesses seeking to expand their services into new target markets. Heficed provides a secure IP address leasing marketplace, able to suffice the growing needs of the industry.
According to Mr. Grinius, there are around 822 million unused IP addresses. “In reality, there are millions of unused IPs, owned by corporations that fail to recognize its current market value”, says Mr. Grinius.
He added that IPv4s will become irrelevant in the next decade or so, as the market moves to IoT and IPv6 integration, so there’s a limited window to monetize owned resources. By leasing IP addresses for as little as $2,5 per year, companies could earn up to 15 percent return on investment.
One of the ways the companies could leverage their assets is through IP brokers, but their expertise lies in the buy-or-sell area, thus they lack the technical knowledge behind leasing IPv4s. However, IP brokers can use the IP address marketplace to facilitate the monetization and mitigate risks of the controlled assets, enabling them to take advantage of the short-term market and turn unused IP assets into an additional stream of revenue.