An IP address tells computers how to find a certain device within a computer network. For each network your computer is connected to, it has a unique IP address on that network. Most IP addresses that you see will be Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses. There are only 4,294,967,296 different combinations of four numbers between 0-255, so that is the theoretical maximum number of IP addresses you could have on any one network. In November 2019, the RIPE NCC announced it had exhausted its pool of IP4 addresses.”]
Source: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/malwarebytes-news/2021/04/what-is-an-ip-address-do-i-need-one/