The Proof of Attendance Protocol is shutting down after more than five years, having minted millions of collectable mementos for crypto events, conferences, hackathons, classrooms, and community gatherings, co-founder Isabel Gonzalez announced.
POAP, as the project is often called, has been a mainstay part of crypto culture for years, having found a way to immortalize conference attendance onchain.
Users would scan a QR code to claim or pay for a unique badge to show "proof of attendance." According to Gonzalez, POAP has also worked with the likes of “Coinbase, Amex, WMG, Bayer, and a long tail of others, including countless in crypto.” Special POAPs were also created to commemorate historic Ethereum milestones, like The Merge upgrade to proof-of-stake.
The POAP concept goes back at least as far as 2019, when about 100 ERC-721 badges were created and claimed in an ETHDenver hackathon, according to the POAP website.
A more formal project was established in 2021.
