The claim that IPv4 could reach a total value of $60 trillion is not rhetorical. It follows from basic asset economics once IPv4 is treated for what it actually is: a scarce, irreplaceable service-enabling asset.

First, IPv4 is not infrastructure cost; it is an access right. No device, server, or service can reliably participate in the Internet without an IPv4 address. In economic terms, IPv4 unlocks revenue. Assets that unlock revenue are not priced by their technical cost but by the value of what they enable. In mature markets, service enablers typically capture 20–30% of the revenue they make possible. A single IPv4 address commonly enables a cloud service generating around $300 per month, yet today that address is leased for roughly $0.30 per month—about 0.1% of the enabled value. If IPv4 were priced even conservatively at 20% of enabled revenue, its value would increase by 200–300.

Second, the supply is fixed and known. Fewer than 3.1 billion IPv4 addresses are actually usable. Scarcity is absolute. If each IPv4 address were valued at $10,000–$20,000—still modest relative to the revenue it enables—the total market value would fall in the $30–60 trillion range. This is simple multiplication, not speculation.

Third, today’s valuation is artificially suppressed. IPv4 already trades as a global asset, but its liquidity is crippled by policy: ownership is not formally recognized, transfers are restricted by holding periods, and bureaucratic “needs tests” replace normal market price signals. As a result, a $200 billion asset class clears less than $2 billion per year in transactions. No asset can be fairly priced under those conditions. Once ownership is recognized and liquidity is allowed to function, capital will reprice IPv4 rapidly and decisively.

Finally, IPv4 would become a new category of digital land. Unlike cryptocurrencies, IPv4 has intrinsic utility, global adoption, and hard scarcity. Unlike gold, it is directly productive. Once freely tradable, IPv4 becomes suitable for balance sheets, securitization, derivatives, and long-term institutional capital. For comparison, gold’s market capitalization is around $15 trillion—without enabling global commerce. IPv4 enables it.

The current ~$200 billion valuation of IPv4 is not its true value; it is the residual value left after decades of policy-induced suppression. Remove those constraints, and the asset will converge toward its economic function. In that context, $60 trillion is not an extreme outcome—it is the upper bound of a conservative range.

IPv4 is the most valuable digital asset the Internet has ever produced. The only reason it has not been recognized as such is that the market has not yet been allowed to work.