On Wealth, Scarcity, and Why This “IP Is Capital” Moment Matters
Written by Lu Heng
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27 December 2025
CEO of LARUS Limited and founder of the LARUS Foundation, he works at the intersection of Internet infrastructure, the IP address market, and global Internet governance, drawing on direct experience with all five Regional Internet Registries. These notes seek to clarify digital resource governance and promote a more responsible and resilient framework for critical IP assets.
I am often called a “businessman,” as though commerce were an aberration rather than a description of how the world actually works. That label avoids the more difficult debate: centralized resource distribution has never worked in human history. Every system that tried to allocate value from the center—land, labor, food, capital—failed for the same reason. Human beings are driven by self-interest. Incentives cannot be legislated away. When people are prevented from acting in their own economic interest, efficiency collapses and wealth accumulates in the hands of power structures instead of spreading through society.
Decentralized systems succeed for the opposite reason. When individuals pursue profit in open markets, coordination emerges naturally. Prices form, scarcity becomes visible, capital flows to where it is valued most, and total wealth grows. This is not ideology; it is historical fact. Free markets do not depend on good intentions. They work because they align individual behavior with collective wealth creation. The Internet itself expanded globally for precisely this reason.
IPv4 did not follow this logic. Distribution was centralized, framed by moral considerations, and deliberately kept inexpensive. Scarcity existed, but it was denied. The result was a structurally poor industry despite its ownership of valuable assets. Networks were trained to regard IPv4 as infrastructure rather than capital, suppressing wealth creation throughout the ecosystem.
What is emerging today is the first genuine opportunity in the history of this industry. Not a cycle or a recurring event, but a singular moment created by history. Once missed, it will never return. Pricing scarcity turns dormant assets into capital, and that capital enables networks to build strength, independence, and long-term resilience.
This is why ISPs should support the “IP Is Capital” movement. Not out of ideology or a desire for alignment, but out of pure self-interest. This is the only opportunity in a generation for networks to become wealthier through what they already own—to stop surviving at the margins and start growing their assets.
Yes, I strongly support free markets. Not because they are benevolent, but because they are effective. Not because they are fair, but because they create wealth at scale. And yes, I am a capitalist—openly and deliberately—because capitalism is the only way for this industry to finally stop suffering from poverty.
