[arin-ppml] ARIN 58 Table Topic - If the Waitlist didn’t exist, what would?

[William Herrin]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 12:25 PM Mike Burns via ARIN-PPML
<arin-ppml at arin.net> wrote:
> However, you asked why ARIN should not auction the addresses.
> To me, that gets down to ARIN’s institutional role. ARIN administers
> the rules of this market: it determines eligibility, recognizes transfers,
> maintains the authoritative registry, and controls how recovered space
> is returned to circulation. If ARIN begins auctioning that space for its
> own revenue, it becomes a market participant in a market it also
> administers. That is an inherent conflict of roles that invites lawsuits.

Hi Mike,

This is one of the two biggest concerns I hear when the idea of
getting rid of the wait list gets floated. It's like when police keep
the revenue from speeding tickets: it distorts the allocation of law
enforcement resources, weighing revenue against citizen safety.

What if ARIN didn't keep the revenue? What if ARIN never had the
revenue in the first place?

ARIN has a small grants program that it uses to fund worthy academic
and community projects that offer value to the registry process or
address community. What if ARIN spun that program out to a separate
501c3 and instead of funding it with dollars, ARIN granted it
recovered IPv4 addresses that the charity was authorized to sell on
the market via the qualified facilitators?

The addresses continue to reach folks with demonstrated need. No free
addresses distort the market. No revenue distorts ARIN's registry
process.

Anyway, just spit-balling here.

Regards,
Bill Herrin