Governance
How CFOs Should Evaluate IPv4 Assets: A Fact-Based Analysis
CFOs must rethink IPv4 addresses as digital capital, balancing valuation, leasing income and long-term transition risk.
Headline
CFOs must rethink IPv4 addresses as digital capital, balancing valuation, leasing income and long-term transition risk.
Context
IPv4 addresses have evolved from a foundational networking protocol into a scarce, transferable asset class with tangible financial value. Since the global exhaustion of unallocated IPv4 space—completed at the IANA level in 2019 and across all Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) by 2023—these 32-bit identifiers have taken on characteristics more akin to infrastructure capital than technical overhead. For Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), this shift demands a new lens: IPv4 is no longer just an IT resource but a strategic balance-sheet asset requiring disciplined valuation, governance, and risk oversight. The market has already priced in scarcity. According to LARUS (larus.net), a neutral, registry-aligned provider of IP market intelligence, the average transaction price for IPv4 addresses in Q4 2025 was $38 per address, reflecting sustained demand despite two decades of IPv6 development. This is not speculative hype—it is driven by operational reality.
Evidence
Pending intelligence enrichment.
Analysis
Even as IPv6 adoption increases, IPv4 remains deeply embedded in core business systems. Google’s public IPv6 adoption dashboard shows that as of February 2026, 52.8% of global users still access its services over IPv4. More importantly, many critical enterprise functions—payment gateways, legacy SaaS integrations, industrial control systems, and third-party APIs—continue to rely on stable IPv4 endpoints. These dependencies are not easily migrated, especially where vendor support or regulatory compliance requires fixed IP whitelisting. This makes IPv4 less like depreciating software and more like spectrum licenses or data center real estate: non-revenue-generating enablers of revenue-critical operations. Under IFRS and U.S. GAAP, such assets can be capitalized when acquired separately and used to support economic activity—precisely the case for organizations purchasing IPv4 blocks to scale cloud or hosting services. 1. Utilization Efficiency and Opportunity Cost The first financial question is straightforward: Are our IPv4 holdings fully utilized? Idle addresses represent stranded capital. The RIPE NCC’s “IPv4 Address Space Report” (December 2023) found that 23% of allocated IPv4 prefixes in its region showed no BGP routing activity over a six-month period—indicating significant underuse among legacy holders.
Key Points
- IPv4 addresses are no longer just technical resources—they’re scarce, income-generating assets with real balance sheet value.
- Even as IPv6 grows, enterprise reliance on IPv4 remains deep and durable—making strategic management essential for CFOs.
Actions
Pending intelligence enrichment.
