We can distinguish between two versions of the Internet Protocol. These are IPv4 and IPv6. IPv6 was introduced due to one major down­side of its predecessor: IPv4 can no longer support the large number of devices on the internet today. The 32 bits of IPv4, enough for about 4.3 billion devices, was sufficient back in 1980 when it was deployed. Although IPv4 is still the most common method of routing internet traffic, IPv6 was introduced to make more room for the increasing number of devices connected to the internet. Nowadays more and more devices come with the ability to connect to the Internet, such as home appliances, televisions and other IoT devices. This is why there also needs to be enough IP addresses for them all. Whereas IPv4 is 32 bits long, IPv6 is 128 bits in length. For example, the IP address 143.114.59.137 in the IPv4 form would look like ::ffff:8f72:3b89 when translated to IPv6.