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This question is basically equal to asking whether it is worth it or “safe” to invest in Bitcoin now.
Alas, nobody knows but wojak says number only go up.
Big clouds still get more IPv4 so currently answer is yes
IPv4 will not vanish in 2-5 years. It will likely not vanish in 5-10 years either.
However, we have seen a good decline in IPv4 value, caused by many reason - both within the market, or as a indirect result of the economical state of things. The upside of this situation is that you can now enter the the market for cheap. Where single IPv4 was valued at 50+ euros in 2021, we have bought under 20 euros as recent as last month.
As someone who is in this game for a while now: as long as yearly yields of 25% are possible (due to the leasing market), this makes it a better vehicle than for example interest on a bank account (2-3%) or real estate (7-10%). That said, like any asset, it isn’t free of ricks. For example, in the RIPE region there have recently been proposals to limit IPv4 transfers. If ever adopted, it would fundamentally disrupt or even annihilate the current market.
As far as i am aware, RIPE did things always in big boys favour as because they are the majority and will always vote against it and or against any proposal which is not in their favour. So, why should this time be different?
Edit:
Except if RIPE add a proposal without the possibilty to vote against it in which they will never do, except if they increase RIPE membership fees then yes, we have the example last 1-2 years in which they added a proposal to increase RIPE membership fees without the possibility to vote against it. And of course that is OK with the big boys with 10-20-100k of IPs in which we pay the same fee if you have 100k+ IPs or a single /24!
In theory, due to the association model, we - as a small service provider - have equal voting rights to "the incumbent". It is not per se 'the big boys' who are in majority, especially since in recent years a lot of newcomers have joined the association.
There's always the option to choose "ABSTAIN" for billing schemes. If sufficient members vote to abstain, none of the options will be adopted. However, so far, I have not seen that happen.
For exactly the above reason, we all pay the same membership fee. We pay an equal amount as Ziggo, KPN and Odido/T-Mobile pays.
Differentiation in price could make for a hostile situation, where those who are bigger, and thus contribute more, could demand certain things: "we will not pay X million dollar, unless Y happens", thus harming the day to day operations.
IPv4 is not going anywhere, valuation may change tho.
Unless you have use for them, i wouldn't do it as speculative investment tho, or at least only marginally.
We are looking to buy more IPv4 during 2026 as we genuinely need them.