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On May 19, 2016, at 8:52 PM, Mike Burns <<a href="mailto:mike@iptrading.com" class="">mike@iptrading.com</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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<span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">I want community members to understand that this is evidence that the market is a natural conserver of valuable resources, and naturally elevates them to a higher
and better use.</span></div>
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Mike - </div>
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<div>There is little doubt that having an IP address transfer market has enabled unused or</div>
<div>otherwise “fallow” IP address blocks to come back to productive use.</div>
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<span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Thus reducing the actual importance of these “angels-on-the-heads-of-pins” discussions about utilization periods or parsing the application of free pool allocation
language in its application to transfers.</span></div>
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<div>Given that all of our experience has been with needs-based transfer policies (which </div>
<div>provide some back pressure to speculation, whether via the direct prohibition that is</div>
<div>implied or the convolutions that is necessary to work around same), it is rather unclear </div>
<div>if financial speculation would have occurred over the past five years in absence of the</div>
<div>needs-based assessment model. In an early message, you characterize it as such - </div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Policy in ARIN has been held hostage for years to the boogeyman of speculators capable of harmfully manipulating the market. Never has evidence supporting the
existence of these people been offered. And certain unavoidable facts are avoided:<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Any
such speculation will drive IPv6 and could render IPv4 worthless<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Supply
has been fragmented through a quarter century of worldwide RIR allocations<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Every
policy-compliant transfer is publicly recorded<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">Prices
have not changed dramatically in five years of trading<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">These conditions make it all but impossible for any market manipulation to occur, because due to fragmentation, the acquisition of enough blocks to manipulate
the market would take years, in my educated opinion, and would have to involve a very rich speculator who was willing to engage in a series of transfers under assumed names, with the speculated asset marching towards a zero value. It’s ludicrous to believe
that any such speculator exists, willing to risk not only the loss of his investments, but worldwide opprobrium.</span></div>
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<div class="">While the circumstances you describe does inhibit speculation, it is unclear if it they</div>
<div class="">would still be latent in a transfer market environment which allowed and effectively </div>
<div class="">endorsed speculation. For example, it is unclear if a short-term market squeeze in</div>
<div class="">IPv4 (e.g. 3 months) would materially impact deployment of IPv6 (which has many</div>
<div class="">other factors that businesses face in making such decisions.) Similarly, we’ve seen</div>
<div class="">greatly accelerated recovery of unused IPv4 blocks since the IPv4 free pool runout</div>
<div class="">in the ARIN region in September 2015 (effectively describing fragmentation of the</div>
<div class="">marketplace over time) and absence of operational need could bring many more </div>
<div class="">actors into seeking underutilized IPv4 number resources blocks. If the community</div>
<div class="">decides to make IPv4 address block rights transferable to any party, regardless of</div>
<div class="">operational need, then they are likely to be considered an investable asset class</div>
<div class="">and analyzed very differently by financial firms going forward. Whether that would </div>
<div class="">be a good outcome (or not( is a matter of judgement regarding the functioning of </div>
<div class="">markets and resulting impact/benefit to this community.</div>
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<div class="">In any case, the proposed policy 2015-3 does not directly touch on these merits </div>
<div class="">of needs-based transfers or otherwise, as it describes removal of a criteria whose </div>
<div class="">definition is unclear to operational need assessment for transfers (and thus not </div>
<div class="">operational today), and thus my reason for moving this more general discussion </div>
<div class="">of a transfer market without operational need-assessment to a separate thread </div>
<div class="">and subject.</div>
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<div class="">Thanks!</div>
<div class="">/John</div>
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<div class="">John Curran</div>
<div class="">President and CEO</div>
<div class="">ARIN</div>
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