PANews reported on March 11 that according to a report released by venture capital firm Dragonfly on Tuesday, in the past four years, strict US cryptocurrency regulation has prevented US citizens from benefiting from airdrops, causing Americans to lose up to $2.6 billion in potential income and the US government to lose up to $1.4 billion in tax revenue. In the report, Dragonfly provided a series of data based on 11 major airdrop samples generated since 2020 (totaling more than $7.16 billion). These airdrops include 1inch, EigenLayer, Arbitrum, Athena, Optimism, and LayerZero. The average claim amount for each eligible address participating in these airdrops was $4,562.

“We realized that there really needed to be some data to actually show the effects of ‘regulation through enforcement’ and how these policies affect individuals, the overall economy, and the U.S. government,” Jessica Furr, deputy general counsel at Dragonfly, said in an interview. “So we decided to use the airdrop as a standalone use case in crypto to see what negative externalities current policies might be creating.” The report estimates that U.S. users lost between $1.84 billion and $2.64 billion in potential revenue between 2020 and 2024 due to geo-blocking. “If the rules are unclear, it’s better for projects to just geo-block to avoid getting in trouble,” Furr said. “Being involved in expensive litigation and having to defend yourself could shut down a project because they can’t afford it.”

The report states that nearly a quarter of the world's active cryptocurrency addresses are controlled by U.S. residents, and the number of U.S. users who have been geo-blocked since 2020 is about 5.2 million. This figure does not include those who use virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass geo-blocking measures. Dragonfly also estimated the tax revenue lost due to geo-blocking airdrop revenue between 2020 and 2024, and estimated that personal and corporate tax losses would be between $525 million and $1.38 billion.