Proof of Attendance Protocol is shutting down after 5+ years

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.

POAP is one among a litany of culturally resonant crypto projects that have decided to wind down in recent months. Dozens of projects like Leap Wallet and Zapper, which had maintained an active user base, have cited poor market conditions and the difficulty of raising fresh capital, among other concerns, for calling it quits.

"Unfortunately, crypto's funding cycles and distribution dynamics made it hard to build a sustainable company without cannibalizing the ethos that made POAP mean something," Gonzalez said.

Perhaps most notably, BitMEX, the company that invented the perpetual future, recently announced it was shutting down, having seen its trading volume decline year after year. Perps are taking off elsewhere, on upstart blockchains like Hyperliquid and fast-adopting centralized exchanges like Binance and OKX, with some TradFi firms taking notice.

While web3’s cultural cache has continued to diminish, Gonzalez argued there remains a place for crypto brands to develop.

“Customer communities are the most undervalued asset a company can have. If you build something with soul, people who use it and love it will take your brand everywhere,” Gonzalez said. “Longevity and brand equity are the only moats left.”

According to the POAP website, nearly 7.6 million POAPs were minted by over 46,210 issuers. The tokens themselves should remain accessible and tradable onchain.