TL;DR: If you run a network in the RIPE region, you're probably either sitting on idle IPv4, short of it, or in a position to lease it to others under your own brand. Here's what each option looks like operationally.
Picture two operators at the same NOG meeting.
One runs a regional ISP that moved its core behind IPv6 and CGNAT a few years back. A legacy /18 is still announced - just enough to hold the allocation - but it carries no real traffic and has earned nothing since the redesign. Clean, registered, idle.
The other runs a growing access network and is out of address space. New subscribers sit behind CGNAT, and the support queue fills with the usual symptoms: broken inbound connections, IPsec and gaming complaints, mail reputation problems. Their only official supply option is a slot on the RIPE waiting list.
They're each other's answer. The thing standing between them is infrastructure - LOAs, ROAs, routing, reputation checks, billing, contracts. That's the IPv4 secondary market in one sentence.
If you operate in the RIPE region, you're probably closer to one of these two than you think - and often you're both. Three positions you can take:
- Monetize idle IPv4
A lot of RIPE members hold legacy space that went quiet after a redesign or an IPv6 migration. At roughly $80/month for a /24 (about $0.31 per address), a dormant /20 brings in around $1,270/month and a /16 around $20,300 - on infrastructure you already own and pay the flat RIPE fee to register.
With sale prices at multi-year lows, leasing usually beats selling: income now, asset retained, no added registry cost. The common blockers - blacklist history, a messy RIPE/whois record, RPKI not configured - are routine cleanup, not dealbreakers. Typical sequence: audit and reputation check, then correct the records, set up RPKI with valid ROAs, and clear any blacklist entries. After that the subnet is ready to earn.
- Lease the IPv4 you need
RIPE's free pool has been gone since November 2019. The waiting list isn't a real supply channel - a single /24, a 12-24 month wait, hundreds of LIRs queued, and no timing guarantee. For adding subscribers this quarter, it's not a plan.
CGNAT covers the gap but carries a real operational cost: port exhaustion, broken applications, abuse attribution headaches, geolocation problems, and the support load that follows.
Leasing is the standard OPEX answer now. On the wire, leased space behaves exactly like owned space: announce the prefix from your ASN with a valid ROA and a matching LOA, and RPKI-validating peers treat it no differently. There's no 24-month transfer hold, and no large up-front payment locked into an asset while prices are still moving.
- Resell IPv4 leasing under your own brand
The one most operators overlook. If you already run a network, you have what an IP leasing business needs: client trust, working billing and support, regional relationships, and often your own address space. What's missing is the platform layer - listing and matching, compliance, reputation and delisting tooling.
A white-label setup supplies that layer behind your brand. You lease to your own customers, bundle space with connectivity or hosting, and keep the margin instead of referring it out. Data centers and hosting providers fit this cleanly - it's an extension of what they already sell to colocation and hosting tenants. You stop being a buyer or seller in someone else's marketplace and become the marketplace.
Across all three, the specialist work is the same - registry cleanup, compliance, routing, abuse monitoring - and it can sit with a platform partner rather than on your team. You don't have to become an IPv4 specialist to work this market.
The infrastructure to connect the two operators in that room finally exists. The only real question is whether you use it actively or keep reacting to the shortage.
Full write-up, with the complete breakdown of each path: ipbnb.com/blog/ipv4-for-nog-2026