OpenIdentity & Addressingthrough 2030
48–58%
Most likely outcome
Managed Degradation (Dual-Stack Equilibrium — IP Demoted, Not Dethroned)
IPv4/IPv6 and the global CTV programmatic landscape
Read the full research →01The Outcomes — 5 scenarios, priced by the research
Managed Degradation (Dual-Stack Equilibrium — IP Demoted, Not Dethroned)48–58%
Both panels' modal path, and the one every base rate points at: the IPv4/IPv6 transition stays half-finished through 2030 (Google measure ~58-65%, linear), cheap IPv4 ($10-20/addr) relieves CGNAT pressure on mature fixed-line networks, and IP persists in every OpenRTB bid request as the universal fallback household key while its weight in targeting, capping, and measurement declines each year. Walled gardens push past ~55-60% of US gross CTV spend; graphs go composite (ACR + authenticated IDs + IP as low-weight glue); the Truthset 13% fight resolves as prior accuracy scandals did — hygiene tiers, not abandonment. US FWA/satellite CGNAT reaches ~18-25% of households, eroding the open-market FAST/AVOD tail; the EU stays consent-gated; mobile-first Asia/LatAm skips IP-household identity for logins/ACR. Nobody declares IP dead; everyone weights it less.
Drivers
- Linear IPv6 adoption (~10pp/3yr since 2018, no historical acceleration mechanism) — mechanical ~58-65% by 2030
- IPv4 price collapse (~$10-20/addr) relieving CGNAT substitution pressure in mature fixed-line markets, preserving one-public-IPv4-per-home on US cable/fiber
- Walled-garden consolidation of CTV spend shrinking the open-market surface that needs IP identity
- US FWA/satellite CGNAT erosion at the growth edge: ~20M connections (~14-15% of households) Q1 2026 → ~18-25% by 2030 on carrier targets
- Absence of any default-on IP obfuscation touching CTV device traffic (Private Relay/Chrome IP Protection scoped away from TV)
- Identifier inertia: OpenRTB device.ip/ipv6 unchanged, LiveRamp IPv4-only matching, sunk multi-billion-dollar graph/remediation industry with no incentive to rebuild
Signals to watch
- Google IPv6 measure staying within ~1pp of the linear trendline each year (~53-55% by end-2027)
- IPv4 /16 prices staying below ~$20-25/address
- Walled-garden share of US gross CTV spend (eMarketer) crossing or stalling near ~55-60%
- T-Mobile/Verizon/AT&T FWA quarterly net adds vs stated 2028-2030 targets
- Truthset/CIMM follow-up rounds showing incremental linkage improvement and 'ISP-verified' hygiene tiers from LiveRamp/Experian/TransUnion rather than abandonment
- Continued absence of tvOS/Roku/Fire TV default-on relay announcements at WWDC/CES
Horizon · 2026-2030; distinguishing feature — no decisive break, steady reweighting — visible by 2027-2028
Accelerated Displacement (Authenticated Takeover of Premium CTV)20–30%
Both panels independently landed at 20-30%: the accuracy war converts into buyer behavior faster than ad-tech inertia predicts. Truthset's 13% finding, FreeWheel/Go Addressable's ISP-verified push, and the Amazon-Roku graph (claimed ~80% deterministic US CTV household coverage) compound with UID2/EUID adoption across Disney/NBCU/Paramount/Roku, so that by 2028-29 premium CTV transacts predominantly on authenticated IDs, ACR-anchored graphs, clean rooms, and platform attestation — IP demoted to coarse geo plus residual fallback. Privacy Pass-style attestation enters CTV anti-fraud, removing one of IP's last load-bearing jobs. The US converges toward what Brazil, China, and mobile-first Asia already are: login-spine markets. Open-market FAST inventory — increasingly CGNAT'd FWA homes — bears the monetization cost. A managed handoff, not a collapse.
Drivers
- Accuracy reckoning: Truthset/CIMM 13% sitting atop a 15-year academic geo-IP falsification record, finally coupled to commercial alternatives (the missing ingredient in prior cycles)
- Deterministic coverage expansion: Amazon-Roku graphs, UID2/EUID across major streamers, ad-tier login growth (Netflix/Amazon MAU expansion)
- FWA/satellite CGNAT erosion making IP measurably worse exactly in AVOD-heavy households
- IETF attestation pipeline (Privacy Pass RFCs 9576-9578, Apple PATs) substituting cryptographic realness for IP reputation; SSAI structural spoofability (ICEBUCKET/SneakyTerra class) pushing fraud defense off the IP signal
- EU regulatory ratchet (Breyer/GDPR doctrine awaiting first CTV bid-stream enforcement) and US VPPA litigation economics pushing publishers to consented authenticated flows
Signals to watch
- A JIC-certified currency (VideoAmp/iSpot/Comscore) publicly reweighting or dropping IP join keys
- UID2/EUID authenticated coverage disclosures crossing ~40-50% of premium CTV impressions
- Privacy Pass / device-attestation tokens appearing in a major SSP or fraud vendor's CTV product
- FreeWheel ISP-verified household product winning named buy-side adoption
- A second Truthset-style audit showing no vendor remediation — accelerates buyer flight
- First EU DPA fine specifically naming IP-based CTV identity; SCOTUS Salazar v. Paramount adopting the broad 'consumer' reading
Horizon · Inflection visible 2027-2028 if it happens; displacement dominant only in the premium tier by 2029-2030
Obfuscation / Regulatory Shock8–15%
Both panels at 8-15%: a discontinuity breaks IP identity in a meaningful CTV segment before 2030 — the outcome base rates argue against but the standards layer has fully prepared. Likeliest vectors: (1) Apple flips a default relay on for tvOS (the MASQUE stack shipped in tvOS 17 in 2023; only the toggle is missing); (2) an EU DPA or CJEU follow-on makes raw-IP bid-stream processing without consent practically unenforceable, forcing EU exchanges to truncate or gate IP; (3) Chrome IP Protection escapes Incognito scoping (a 5G operator relay is the dark horse). Effects: bifurcated clear-vs-proxied bidstream; frequency capping breaks first; attestation tokens become the replacement realness signal; affected segments transition abruptly. Kept low because privacy features ship late and narrow, and ad-funded TV OS vendors have negative incentive to mask.
Drivers
- Completed IETF obfuscation stack (MASQUE RFCs 9297/9298/9484, OHTTP RFC 9458, Privacy Pass RFCs 9576-9578) — deployment, not design, is all that remains
- Apple's privacy-as-moat strategy, existing tvOS relay capability, and low ad-revenue dependence on open-market CTV — it can break the layer cheaply
- CDN constituency (Cloudflare/Fastly/Akamai) with revenue incentives to grow proxied volume
- EU legal substrate: Breyer + GDPR Recital 30 + national DPA activism; ~20 US state laws treating IP as personal data
Signals to watch
- WWDC 2026-2028: Private Relay or any default relay extended to tvOS
- Chrome IP Protection scope expansion beyond Incognito/Masked Domain List
- First EU DPA enforcement action naming bid-stream IP processing in CTV/streaming
- Any commercial ISP or 5G operator launching a consumer MASQUE relay (none exist as of June 2026)
- Privacy Pass WG rate-limited-credential drafts reaching RFC — the frequency-cap-without-identity primitive
- Smart-TV OEMs (Samsung/LG/Roku) responding to ACR litigation with network-layer privacy features
Horizon · Trigger event 2026-2028 if it happens; ecosystem effects lag 12-24 months, so impact lands 2029-2030
IP Renaissance (Verified Linkages & IPv6 Prefix Standardization)7–15%
The one genuine panel divergence — preserved, not averaged. The driver-dominant forecaster put this at 10-18% (the multi-billion-dollar graph industry will defend its asset; buyers need a free key present in 100% of bid requests; the 4.5x best-to-worst vendor spread proves the signal was never the problem). The base-rate-first forecaster put it at 5-12% (no IAB IPv6 work item exists; commercial files under-represent IPv6 by 72%; ISPs must commercialize linkage data despite privacy exposure — all unstarted). In this future, IAB Tech Lab or exchange consortia standardize IPv6 /56-/64 prefixes as the household key, ISP/MVPD-verified linkage tiers replace stale third-party files, and IP remains the primary open-market key in the US and stable-prefix EU through 2030. Confined geography: cannot extend to mobile-first IPv6 economies, rotation markets (Germany), or CGNAT'd FWA homes.
Drivers
- IPv4 price collapse sustaining one-public-IPv4-per-home on US cable/fiber (Comcast/Charter/AT&T Fiber unchanged)
- IPv6 prefix stability in non-rotation markets — the prefix is a household identifier by construction (RFC 8415/RIPE-690; RFC 8981's own admission)
- Economic interest of the IP-graph/remediation industry (LiveRamp, Experian, TransUnion, Digital Element) in defending its asset; ISP/MVPD incentive to monetize verified household linkages
- Buyer need for a free, universal key present in 100% of bid requests — no authenticated ID matches its coverage
- Truthset framing battle won by the 'linkage hygiene, not signal' camp (Saxon & Feamster: fixed-line /24s months-stable, ~3km median geo error)
Signals to watch
- IAB Tech Lab working group or OpenRTB extension on IPv6 prefix/household handling
- LiveRamp reversing its IPv4-only matching guidance
- A major US ISP launching a commercial IP-verification/linkage product beyond Comcast/FreeWheel
- Commercial IP files closing the 72% IPv6 under-representation gap; Truthset follow-up showing verified-tier linkages above ~50-60% accuracy
- Pixalate or a peer publishing a refreshed IPv6-share-of-CTV figure (none since 2017) — evidence the bidstream is finally instrumenting IPv6
- Geofeed coverage breaking out of its ~1%-of-IPv4-space plateau
Horizon · Verified-tier products and standardization moves must start by 2027 to matter; rehabilitation judgment 2028-2030
Residual Tail (Unmodeled Discontinuities)3–5%
Futures the four scenarios do not capture: a US federal privacy law with EU-style consent defaults reaching IP processing; a fraud catastrophe large enough to force cryptographic attestation as a buying requirement within a single year; IPv4 market dislocation (DoD legacy-space release or speculative re-spike) large enough to rewrite ISP addressing economics; or a structural CTV demand shock (recession, walled-garden antitrust breakup) that changes who needs household identity at all. Acknowledged, not modeled.
Drivers
- Unmodeled discontinuities by definition
- US federal privacy legislation (low likelihood through 2030 given the ~20-state patchwork equilibrium)
- Macro/antitrust shocks to CTV market structure
Signals to watch
- Federal comprehensive privacy bill advancing past committee with preemption resolved
- Any single fraud scheme publicly costing advertisers >$500M
- IPv4 price moves >50% in either direction within two quarters
Horizon · 2026-2030
Probabilities are the research's own scenario bands, priced as outcomes. The full argument — history, current state, drivers, and sources — lives in the corpus: read the Future Trajectory chapter.
