The IPv4 transfer market had a very active first half of 2026, but the headline story is not volume. It is pricing.

Across completed IPv4Center marketplace transactions and official RIR transfer records, H1 2026 saw 596 transactions covering 5,016,064 IPv4 addresses. Estimated market value reached $58.5 million, with an average price of $20.04 per IP and a median price of $20.00 per IP.

That median is important. When the median sits almost exactly on the average, it usually means the market is not being distorted by a few distressed sales. Instead, the broader pricing range has shifted. In plain terms: this was not just a handful of cheap blocks pulling the market down. Buyers and sellers appear to have accepted a new price level.

Compared with H1 2025, the average price per IP fell 35.7%. Compared with H2 2025, it declined 19.1%. That is a significant correction, especially for an asset class that only a few years ago was trading at much higher levels amid cloud demand, scarcity concerns, and aggressive infrastructure expansion.

Yet transaction count increased. H1 2026 recorded 596 transactions, up from 420 transactions a year earlier. IP addresses traded also rose sharply, from around 1.95 million in H1 2025 to just over 5 million in H1 2026.

This combination tells us something useful: the market did not freeze. Sellers did not simply refuse lower bids. Instead, many accepted the new pricing environment and continued to transact.

ARIN Was the Cheapest Major Region; RIPE Held a Premium

Regional pricing remains one of the most important variables in IPv4 valuation.

ARIN was the most active region by transaction count, with 290 transactions and an average price of $18.95 per IP. RIPE followed closely with 273 transactions and an average price of $20.95 per IP.

The RIPE premium is not surprising. RIPE’s 24-month transfer restriction reduces the ability to quickly flip blocks and creates a structural supply constraint. That rule continues to support pricing, especially for clean and transferable European inventory.

APNIC averaged $20.69 per IP across a much smaller sample of 22 transactions. LACNIC showed the highest average at $24.77 per IP, but only across 11 transactions, so the figure should be read carefully. Thin markets can produce strong-looking averages that do not always reflect broad liquidity.

AFRINIC remained effectively inactive in transfer terms, with no recorded transactions in this dataset. Ongoing governance and legal uncertainty continue to limit market confidence around AFRINIC resources.

The /24 Remains the Retail Unit of the IPv4 Market

The most commonly traded block size in H1 2026 was the /24, with 182 transactions. That represented roughly 30.5% of all deals.

This is not surprising. A /24 is still the practical minimum routing unit for many real-world deployments, and it remains the size most accessible to smaller ISPs, hosting providers, VPN operators, enterprise networks, and infrastructure teams with narrow requirements.

Small blocks usually command a higher per-IP price because fixed costs do not scale down. Due diligence, escrow, transfer coordination, blacklist checks, and registry paperwork take time, whether the buyer is purchasing 256 IPs or 65,536 IPs.

Large blocks, especially /16 and above, continue to trade at lower per-IP prices. The buyer pool for a /16 is much smaller, capital requirements are higher, and deployment planning is more complex. That illiquidity creates a discount.

In the current market, the middle range — roughly /20 to /18 — appears to be the most efficient zone for buyers who want scale without entering the very large-block market.

Buy vs. Lease: The Math Still Favors Buying for Long-Term Use

At the H1 2026 average purchase price of $20.04 per IP and an estimated lease rate of $0.5859 per IP per month, the buy-versus-lease calculation is straightforward.

A purchased block pays for itself in approximately 34.2 months, or just under 2.9 years.

For a /24, that means a purchase price of about $5,130 at the market average, compared with roughly $150 per month to lease. After around 34 months, the lessee has paid more than the purchase cost, but still does not own the asset.

For short-term needs, leasing remains practical. It avoids upfront capital expenditure and gives companies flexibility. But for any deployment expected to run for three years or more, buying deserves serious consideration.

From the holder’s side, the same math explains why leasing remains attractive. At current prices and lease rates, the implied gross annual yield is about 35.1%. That is a high cash-flow return compared with many traditional asset classes, although IPv4 leasing does carry its own risks: abuse handling, blacklist management, counterparty risk, operational overhead, and long-term IPv6 adoption.

A Market Reset, Not a Demand Collapse

The most useful way to read H1 2026 is as a reset.

Prices are down sharply from the highs, but activity remains healthy. Buyers are still present. Sellers are still closing deals. Infrastructure providers still need IPv4 for hosting, broadband, enterprise networks, VPNs, proxies, AI infrastructure, SaaS platforms, and hybrid cloud environments.

What has changed is buyer discipline.

The speculative urgency of 2021–2024 has cooled. Many buyers are no longer willing to pay peak-era prices unless the block is exceptionally clean, strategically located, or urgently needed. At the same time, sellers holding out for $30+ per IP across ordinary inventory may find that the market has moved on.

For buyers, this is the most favorable environment in several years. For sellers, it is a reminder that liquidity exists, but not necessarily at old expectations.

What Buyers Should Watch

For buyers, price is only one part of the decision.

The quality of the block matters just as much. Clean reputation, no serious blacklist history, clear RIR ownership, transfer eligibility, proper documentation, and seller authority are all critical. A cheap block can become expensive very quickly if it carries abuse history or transfer complications.

Buyers should also compare registry rules. A RIPE block may carry a higher price, but it may also be more desirable for certain European use cases. An ARIN block may offer better pricing, but the buyer still needs to evaluate intended use, geolocation expectations, routing requirements, and future transfer plans.

Escrow remains essential. IPv4 transfers are high-value, process-heavy transactions. Skipping escrow or failing to verify ownership can create serious financial and operational risk.

What Sellers Should Watch

For sellers, the message is more uncomfortable.

The market is still liquid, but the pricing environment has changed. If a seller needs immediate liquidity, staged sales may be more realistic than waiting for a full return to peak pricing.

However, sellers with clean, unused blocks also have another option: leasing. If the holder believes the current correction is temporary, leasing can generate recurring revenue while preserving ownership. That strategy may be especially attractive for holders who are not under pressure to sell.

The key is block quality. Clean, transferable, well-documented inventory still attracts serious buyers. Blocks with reputation issues, unclear history, or registry complications face a much harder market.

Outlook for the Rest of 2026

The current forecast points to a mostly stable second half of 2026, with the overall average price projected around $19.54 per IP by December 2026. That would represent only modest additional softening from the H1 average of $20.04.

In other words, the steepest part of the correction may already have happened.

RIPE is expected to remain stronger than ARIN because of its transfer restrictions and regional demand. ARIN may continue to be the more price-sensitive market, though U.S. broadband and infrastructure demand could absorb some supply over time.

Small blocks should continue to command a premium. Large blocks may remain discounted unless institutional demand returns more aggressively.

Final Thought

IPv4 is no longer trading like a scarcity panic asset. It is behaving more like a mature infrastructure asset with regional differences, quality premiums, liquidity discounts, and yield considerations.

That is probably healthier for the market.

For buyers, the opportunity is in disciplined acquisition. For sellers, the choice is between accepting the reset, leasing for yield, or holding for a future recovery. For everyone else watching the market, H1 2026 confirms one thing clearly: IPv4 is still economically relevant, but the easy peak-pricing era is behind us.

Full monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual IPv4 market reports for all available years can be viewed here. The reports include historical pricing, RIR-level comparisons, block-size analysis, transfer activity, lease-versus-buy calculations, and updated market forecasts.