IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) is the latest version of the Internet Protocol, designed to replace its predecessor, IPv4. The main reason for creating IPv6 was the exhaustion of the available addresses in the old version.
The key difference between the two versions is the length of the address. While IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses, IPv6 works with significantly longer, 128-bit addresses. This is equivalent to 16 bytes and provides an astronomically large number of unique addresses, ensuring that every connected device in the world in the future can have its own unique IP identifier.
IPv6 addresses are usually written as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, separated by colons. For example: 2301:3dt8:13a5:19d7:3g34:8e1e:08a0:465b. In addition to the huge address range, IPv6 also offers improvements in routing efficiency and better support for network-level security.