[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2014-14: Removing Needs TestfromSmall IPv4 Transfers

[Owen DeLong]

On Jun 23, 2014, at 07:40 , Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com> wrote:

> The fact that the distribution both with and without needs basis seems to fall along roughly the same lines in terms of block size distribution seems to me to say that elimination of needs basis testing has not shown to have any meaningful effect, in fact.
> 
> Owen
> 
> 
> Hi Owen,
> 
> This also means no evidence of speculation, unless for some reason you think speculators wish to engage in many small transactions for some reason. Clearly there were no speculators waiting with bated breath for the elimination of needs-testing so they could begin buying addresses, and also there is no evidence of overbuying by recipients who were otherwise limited by the amount they could justify.

Perhaps. Or perhaps there are other reasons that the speculators haven't started yet.

> I have seen fears that both of these activities would be the result of eliminating the needs-test, and we can say from this early data that such activity has not manifested to a large and obvious extent, at least.

I think it's too early to draw any such conclusion from the data. Indeed, I don't think that the parallel distributions in the early data proves anything, but it certainly can't be used to prove Milton's point, since it actually seems to contradict it, if anything. Personally, I think it is way too small of a sample size to consider meaningful.

> In other words, there are limits to speculation baked-in, including fragmented supply, public recording of transactions, and looming IPv6.
> And the limits to overbuying or hoarding are provided by the co$t of the addresses and the realization that there is likely to be a vibrant  and more open future market in IPv4 addresses for any future address needs.

This presumes that speculators would have their transactions recorded publicly (no evidence to support that and you yourself have claimed that there are, in fact, significant numbers of off-books transfers). You can't have your cake and eat it too. I don't think that with significant capital to put into speculation, a vibrant and more open future market in IPv4 addresses is assured in any way, shape, or form.

Owen