Black Market IP Addresses

Only a few months left before IANA runs out of free IPv4 addresses. To date, there are only 20 free blocks / 8 , although in January there were 26 of them . Thus, addresses can end by the end of this year. Due to the acute shortage, the regional registrars (RIR) impose restrictions on the issuance of units for buyers. In particular, the minimum size will be reduced from / 22 (1024 addresses) to / 24 (256). Despite this, the RIR's stock of addresses will also end in a couple of years. What will happen next?

For those who have not switched to IPv6, the situation threatens to become hopeless, and experts even talk about the emergence of a black market . According to R. Kevin Oberman, the black market already exists on a small scale, but in the future it threatens to grow significantly if registrars do not introduce special anti-fraud measures.

Oberman believes that under these conditions, registrars should organize a platform for legal trade in IP addresses between market participants, prices for which will be determined by the balance of supply and demand. Only in this case, the black market will disappear. For example, the American regional registrar ARIN has already developed a sample of such rules , according to which the owner of the block of IP addresses can return it to the registrar with the indication of the new owner, while ARIN does not participate in financial transactions between the parties to the transaction.