The Internet has become an essential part of our daily lives, connecting people, businesses, and communities worldwide. However, as the number of devices and users on the Internet grows, the demand for IP addresses also increases. IP addresses are unique numerical identifiers assigned to each device connected to the Internet, and they are necessary for devices to communicate with each other.
The IPv4 addressing scheme, which was first introduced in 1983, has been the backbone of the Internet since its inception. IPv4 addresses consist of 32 bits, allowing for approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses. This may sound like a large number, but with the exponential growth of the Internet, it is not enough to meet the demand.
The exhaustion of IPv4 addresses has been a long time coming. In the early days of the Internet, IP addresses were allocated freely, without much consideration for their long-term sustainability. But as the Internet grew, it became clear that this approach was not sustainable, and in 1992, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) introduced a new addressing scheme called IPv6.
IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, compared to IPv4’s 32 bits, which means that there are significantly more unique addresses available. However, despite the benefits of IPv6, adoption has been slow, and IPv4 continues to be the dominant addressing scheme.
As the demand for IP addresses continued to grow, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) began implementing measures to conserve IPv4 address space. In 2011, IANA allocated the last remaining blocks of IPv4 addresses to regional Internet registries (RIRs), who then distributed them to Internet service providers and other organizations.
Despite these measures, the depletion of IPv4 addresses was inevitable, and in 2019, the last block of IPv4 addresses was allocated by the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). This marked the end of the IPv4 addressing scheme and the beginning of a new era for the Internet.
This is where IPv4DAO comes in. We are a decentralized autonomous organization that builds the first-ever decentralized pool of IPv4 addresses. Our goal is to make the Internet more decentralized and empower the community by providing a fair and efficient way to access IPv4 addresses.
Our governance tokens enable owners to participate in DAO governance and decide how to use our pool. By prioritizing projects with a bigger impact on Internet development, we aim to make our pool more efficient and fight IP scarcity.
One of the ways we can do this is by sharing resources from our pool with projects that cannot afford to own IP subnets. We can also provide some of our subnets to network researchers to help them with their research.
At IPv4DAO, we believe that the Internet should be decentralized and accessible to all. We are committed to making a positive impact on the development of the Internet and empowering the community to take ownership of the IP address space.
If you share our vision and are passionate about making a difference, we invite you to join our DAO. By becoming a member of our community, you can participate in our governance and help us decide how to use our pool of IPv4 addresses. You will also have the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals, learn about the latest developments in the industry, and contribute to the growth of the Internet.
