What are POAPs?

POAPs stand for Proof of Attendance Protocol, and are a digital proof that the user attended an event (virtual or physical). Examples of this could be attending a virtual discord town hall, supporting a protocol at a milestone or even a merged pull request!

These POAPs act as a passport or badge on where you’ve been. They are standard NFTs (ERC - 721s) and usually live on the main POAP page, but can also be transferred to your eth wallet.

Why use POAPs?

They’re fun! POAPs harken back to getting badges for completing or learning in our youth, but for a new digital (and distributed) era. They allow people to show their participation, their attendance, and their interest in a multitude of different events or protocols! In the future, they could also add to on chain reputation and identity.

Example 1 - POAPs + Events

You could throw an event such as an Ethereum Merge talk, and allow for users to sign up for the event with their emails. These emails could be added to the approved POAP list (users could also choose to scan an onsite QR code for the same effect), and then could be claimed using that email (and then wallet address) at a later date. Art would need to be uploaded for the POAP image, preferably being something that represents the event visually, to help the attendee show off their POAP in their gallery.

Example 2 - POAPs as utility

POAPs excite me because of their potential. Their value isn’t derived from $$$ but from what they can offer. In the near future, we could see POAPs combined with other POAPs to contribute to on-chain reputation, or be combined to access private discords, events, or repos. Imagine a situation where a user with multiple POAPs from donating to public goods (your reminder to donate to Gitcoin!) could access a specific Eth Denver event or get first access to exclusive releases!