A price reset,
not a collapse.

← Insights

The first half of 2026 put a number on the new normal. Roughly 600 recorded transactions moved just over five million IPv4 addresses, with the market average settling at $20.04 per address and the median at exactly $20.00, per IPv4Center's half-year review. The peak-era prices of 2021 are gone and they are not coming back soon. But the fashionable word for this market is wrong: this is not a collapse. It is a reset to a working level, and the discount is concentrated almost entirely at one end of the market.

The numbers that matter

• $20.04 average, $20.00 median. When average and median sit on top of each other, pricing is orderly, not distressed.
• Regional spread: RIPE ~$20.95, ARIN ~$18.95. The RIPE region trades at a premium, sustained by policy differences and steady inbound demand.
• The split is by block size, not by market. Small blocks (/24 to /22) hold at or above the average; /16-scale blocks sit at multi-year lows, in some cases 60% or more below peak. Sellers of size are the ones absorbing the reset.
• Leasing: roughly $0.35 to $0.50 per address per month in broker-published ranges. At a $20 asset price, the midpoint is on the order of a quarter of the asset's value per year, gross, before costs, churn, and risk. That arithmetic is thinning sale supply.
• The RIPE region is a net importer: 279 inter-RIR transfers in against 22 out so far in 2026, per RIR transfer-log analysis. Consolidation into Europe continues.
• The free pool is arithmetic, not an option. RIPE NCC data early this year showed the front of the /24 waiting list waiting well over a year. For new space at any speed, the market is the route.
• The 24-month hold shapes everything. Space transferred in the RIPE region cannot be re-transferred for two years, which keeps speculators thin and forces buyers to plan on a 2028 horizon, not a 2026 one.

If you hold

A large, idle block is not the depreciating embarrassment the headline price suggests. At current lease rates, a block can gross a substantial share of its own market value every year while you keep the asset and the option to sell into a better market. The holders who get hurt are the ones forced to sell size into a discounted market at speed, and forced sales are almost always a records problem in disguise: the deal that must close this quarter, with registrations that take a quarter to fix.

If you're buying

The premium on small blocks punishes fragmented buying. Fewer, larger, better-structured acquisitions at the discounted end will usually beat a drip of /24s at the premium end, but only if your forecast supports it, because the 24-month hold means you are buying for the plan, not for the gap. And every block carries its history with it: routing record, reputation and blocklist standing, geolocation baggage. In this market those are price factors, and they belong in diligence before the price is agreed, not after.

If you lease, either side

The yields are real and so is the operational exposure. Lessors get hurt on the registry side: assignments not registered, route authorisations left open after a lease ends, abuse reports landing on the owner's reputation. Lessees carry continuity risk and need the paperwork that proves their right to route. Leasing is a governance activity wearing a commercial coat, and the registries increasingly treat it that way.

Sources: IPv4Center H1 2026 market review (published via CircleID, July 2026); Brander Group inter-RIR transfer analysis and RIR transfer logs; RIPE NCC waiting-list data (February 2026); broker-published lease-rate ranges. Figures as published by the named sources at the time of writing; verify current pricing before transacting. KIPA holds no inventory and takes no commission on any transaction.

KIPA Market Brief No. 1 · Published 13 July 2026 · Next edition: October 2026.