After the quick internet growth over the last decade, many parties look to monetize IP addresses as these have turned into valuable resources. There could be consistent revenue in the long term if you lease IP addresses, even as selling these might bring a huge one-time return on investment.

In May 2021, $36 was the rate for each IPv4 address, the highest-ever price for this product. Its value keeps trending upwards, so organizations are seeking to capitalize on their accumulated IP resources. Here, we will discuss why it is potentially a more lucrative strategy to lease IP addresses, bringing revenue streams for IP holders while easing the IPv4 scarcity issue.

A New Internet Industry Standard
Nobody had anticipated how far the internet could grow in its early days, which made IP addresses shared quite freely all over the market with no comprehensive end-user monitoring. The IPv4 address leasing market was regarded as a gray zone as the industry lacked secure and established intermediaries to lease and handle IP resources. Therefore, organizations were leaning more toward selling the IP resources they owned.

Leasing is a secure, fully automated and quick process, so it may become the new standard in this industry. The key to leasing is to lay down thorough and precise procedures. For instance, some marketplace websites allow setting the rate and leasing the IPv4 subnets in a matter of minutes.

Leasing Versus Selling
An excellent way of bringing a solid level of revenue for a company is to sell the IP addresses that it owns. However, the desire for fast profit could result in it losing out on big opportunities, as organizations could make almost double through IPv4 leasing for a year. For instance, consider the /16 IP subnet. With $30 for each IP address as the average price to sell, there is a possible revenue of $1,966,080, versus the $353,894 that leasing could bring annually. However, individuals often do not assess the international IP market gains, which might be 25% or so on average. This means, in the event of a company choosing to lease IP addresses for a year at the least, it might have $2,811,494 in annual revenue, a 43% revenue increase.

Making Network Sustainability Possible
The unexpected shift to internet activity, fueled by this epidemic, gave rise to a newfound demand for IPv4 addresses to support hosting services, VPNs and more. The internet could resist the pressure in a way that made leading streaming service platforms restrict the online video quality, which reduced the stress somewhat. This is how IP address leasing could aid in maintaining a more stress-resistant internet down the road.

Leasing allows unused IP addresses to enter the market again, easing the stress of the continually growing network-connected device count. Consequently, it can allow business enterprises to meet their IP requirements while scaling operations with no extra market pressure. This enables deliberate allocation of IP resources, leveling out the network stress somewhat and allowing a more controlled form of internet expansion.