U.S. users missed billions worth of crypto airdrops due to geoblocking restrictions

Crypto users in the US missed out on billions worth of potential gains from airdrops due to geoblocking restrictions despite 22-24% of global crypto addresses belonging to US residents.

According to a recent Dragonfly report, up to 5.2 million Americans have been blocked from claiming airdrop tokens due to policies that aimed to reduce regulatory exposure.

The report analyzed 11 geo-blocked airdrops. In total, these airdrops are valued at $7.16 billion and shared among 1.9 million wallet addresses. This means that the median payout per wallet address would be around $4,600.

Between 2020 – 2024, US crypto users have missed airdrops worth between $1.84 billion and $2.64 billion, the report says.

Another larger set of data analyzed by CoinGecko consists of 21 blocked airdrops. This brings the upper limit of the missed payouts to $5.02 billion. While some users would have accessed these airdrops via VPNs, there is still likely to be a significant portion of recipients who never claimed their tokens.

The report said, “The economic repercussions of geoblocking on U.S. users are profound, with significant revenue losses that affect both the individual claimers and the broader economic landscape.”

Overall, an estimated $418 million to $1.1 billion in federal tax revenue has been lost due to the restrictions. The report mentions that these estimates do not include the additional tax from capital gains from the sale of the airdrop tokens.

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