Geoff Huston’s annual roundup examines the state of IPv4 and IPv6 address space, noting a 0.01% contraction in the public pool by 2025. The piece highlights how NAT and RIR allocations have stretched limited addresses, delaying the inevitable shift for the next decade and growth.

IPv4 exhaustion began in 2021 when regional registries ran out of unallocated blocks, yet operators still trade and reallocate addresses. The distinction between allocation and assignment blurs, as operators use both to serve internal and customer networks while global traffic continues to escalates dramatically daily.

The continued reliance on NAT and port‑translation tricks stretches IPv4 but risks fragmentation. If the Internet splits into isolated IPv4 “cones,” global routing could suffer. Alternatively, accelerated IPv6 adoption might create a parallel, fully addressable network layer for future applications and services to scale smoothly.

Industry watchers should monitor RIR policy shifts and the rise of IPv6‑only data centers. As device density climbs, the cost of NAT traversal and address scarcity will push operators toward native IPv6 deployments, reshaping routing protocols and security models for the next generation of cloud.