Post by Escrow.com

The internet ran out of addresses in 2011. Now AI agents are making it worse. Every device on the internet – every phone, every server, every AI chatbot – needs a digital address to communicate. They're called IPv4 addresses. There are only 4.3 billion. The global supply was exhausted 15 years ago – yet demand is surging. The rise of AI agents has created an entirely new category of consumption. Every autonomous agent operating on the internet needs its own IPv4 address – and millions are being created. The result is a hidden market most people have never heard of is booming. Escrow.com has just published the inaugural IPv4 Investment Index – based on $536 million in proprietary transaction data across 3,800+ deals in 82 countries. It's the first public dataset of its kind. What the data shows: → Q1 2026 average deal size surged 66% year-over-year → 522,000 IP addresses changed hands in Q1 alone → AWS holds 191 million addresses worth an estimated $6.7 billion → Brokers predict prices will double by year-end → The US government's $22B BEAD broadband program hasn't even released its funds yet Meanwhile, specialist brokers are scouring 60+ countries for dormant addresses allocated in the 1980s to companies that no longer exist. Ford Motor Company holds 16 million addresses it doesn't need. Universities are selling unused blocks and funding scholarships. Retired engineers are discovering forgotten assets worth millions. We also produced a video investigation featuring interviews with IPv4 brokers, data centre operators, and people who discovered they were sitting on a gold mine. 📺 Watch the full story: www.escrow.com/ipv4 📈 Read the report: https://lnkd.in/eYtkfmfg #IPv4 #AI #AIAgents #InternetInfrastructure #DataCenters #DigitalAssets #Escrow

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