[address-policy-wg] do IP addresses have a financial value?

Jim and all,

  I must agree with Jim here.  I can say that our IPv8 addresses
have for whatever reason become extremely valuable, as discrete
offers for IPv8 address space I am getting has in two months,
jumped by 3x.  Of course we never sell IPv8 address space,
as our policies only allocate based on demonstrated need
and time to full usage.

Jim Reid wrote:

> On 9 Oct 2008, at 08:28, Andy Davidson wrote:
>
> > Addressing doesn't have latent worth right now because as an LIR
> > with a justifiable need, I can beg resources from a hostmaster, at
> > no (or a small marginal - if billing score is implicated) direct cost.
>
> I'm not convinced by that argument Andy and IMO it's unlikely to stand
> up to scrutiny by an auditor or the tax authorities. The two of us
> could agree to trade some commodity and claim that what was traded had
> no value. That doesn't make it so in the eyes of the taxman or our
> company auditors.
>
> In some respects IPv4 space today has parallels with .com stock
> options. [Remember them?] At the point of acquisition they had a
> marginal value -- "fair" market price -- that was close to zero. Most
> stayed there or depreciated. :-( But when the circumstances were
> right, the options became very valuable and those holding them got rich.
>
> > I therefore can't trade any of these address resources because
> > others can do the same.  This means that today the addresses have no
> > value.
>
> Just because someone can't or doesn't want to trade something doesn't
> mean it has no value. We know that there have been examples where
> companies have merged or been acquired for the address space they held
> and that space determined the price of the transaction. And there is a
> grey market in address space outside the RIR system. Which implies
> that addresses do have a value.

Regards,

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