Future tech will require IPv6, experts urge internet upgrade

It’s time for the world to take the plunge and upgrade the protocol that drives the Internet. IPv6, the next-generation version, opens a treasure chest of economic potential for new technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), 6G, Internet of Things (IoT), and peer-to-peer (P2P) communications. But continued hesitance to fully embrace the future is costing enterprises and governments time, effort, and money, as they maintain dual-stack deployments to support the legacy IPv4 infrastructure. In 2025,several major countries have now crossed the 51% threshold for IPv6 adoption,with some at 75%,and experts are calling for leadership in moving to IPv6-only as soon as possible. It’s a lot closer than you might think.

The latest is a report from the IPv6 Forum titled “2025 Call for Final Action: Move to Native IPv6-Only.” The 23-page report, published last week, details how this can be accomplished easily while keeping support for legacy IPv4 resources via existing bridging technologies.

CoinGeek spoke to IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid about the report and why moving to native IPv6-only makes the most sense for enterprises and governments.

“Big countries reaching more than 75% are wasting too much effort having an expensive dual stack, especially with IPv4/NAT/CGNAT, to maintain and manage,” he said. “the proposal I have made is that it’s essentially good to have just the IPv6 stack while still connecting with IPv4 as before, but having a clean IPv6 in-house network-easy to manage and to contain their investment, making it future-proof.”

What’s the big deal with IPv6?

CoinGeek has a detailed explainer and infographic on the benefits of IPv6 vs. IPv4 here. The best-known advantage is IPv6’s near-infinite supply of unique addresses, allowing every Internet-connected device to have its own.

You’ve probably heard the term “IP address,” and the problem with legacy IPv4 is that it ran out of new ones a long time ago. The bolt-on solution to this is network address translation (NAT) routers, which map new address details to data packets while they’re in transit. This works-mostly- but it comes with added complexity and security vulnerabilities, and it was always meant to be a temporary solution.

There are many other benefits, too. IPv6 has end-to-end encryption and data integrity-checking features built in, not just added on.

IPv6 Adoption Accelerates with Government and Tech Giant Support

The transition to IPv6, the latest version of the Internet Protocol, is gaining significant traction worldwide, driven by support from major technology companies and government initiatives. While the older IPv4 protocol is nearing address exhaustion, IPv6 offers a vastly larger address space and improved efficiency.

Key to this transition are technologies like NAT64 and DNS64, which allow IPv6-only networks to communicate with IPv4-only resources. A more advanced mechanism, 464XLAT, further enhances this compatibility. According to a recent report, “464XLAT is an IPv6 transition mechanism that provides full IPv4 connectivity to IPv6-only clients by performing a two-step translation: first on the client device (CLAT) from IPv4 to IPv6, and then in the network (PLAT) from IPv6 back to IPv4.”

The report emphasizes that “464XLAT is the key technology that makes large-scale, user-pleasant IPv6-only networking a practical reality today, by ensuring complete backward compatibility with the entire IPv4 Internet.”

Large technology corporations including Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Meta (NASDAQ: META),and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are actively utilizing NAT64 and DNS64. Simultaneously, the United States government is mandating IPv6 adoption across key departments such as the Defense Department, the national Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the General Services Governance (GSA).

China is emerging as a global leader in IPv6 adoption, with approximately 75% penetration. This progress is fueled by initiatives from Chinese government departments and major technology companies like Alibaba (NASDAQ: BABA), Baidu (NASDAQ: BAIDF),and Huawei,alongside local telecommunications providers. Japan and India are also implementing ample IPv6 deployment plans,solidifying asia’s position at the forefront of this technological shift.