# Back From the Dead By [POAPs Gone Wild](https://paragraph.com/@poapsgonewild) · 2023-04-17 --- One of the last things we ever _did_ was tap my phone to this credit-card-looking thing so I could claim his “You Met Me” POAP. The evening prior he made me set up an Ethereum wallet. The last thing he ever _said_ to me was how blockchain tech could let people work without a middle man, so like the Lyft driver picking him up could collect all the money directly. I didn’t get it (still don’t). It was a cold, wet night. They say black ice caused the car to skid across the center line into a truck, but I do always wonder if in that moment he might have been insisting his driver check out his POAP collection, or explaining POAPs or Ethereum in that animated way he got when discussing crypto, or maybe even asking the driver to reach around to the backseat to claim his “You Met Me” POAP. It took a long time before I looked at that POAP again, the only one I own. It was fear of the memories it would bring back.  When I finally did it was painful, but then I found myself checking it more and more. There were 34 other people who had collected it. I didn’t know who they were. Most (like me) didn’t even have an ENS name. But I could click on their wallets and see other POAPs they were collecting, and some of their collections (unlike mine) grew over time. I took some pleasure or peace knowing that other people he knew were out there living their lives doing things they enjoyed.  I probably started checking it too much. The art wasn’t great, just some AI-generated image of his face, with a basic description saying the POAP proved you had met him. But I’d open up my POAP app, zoom in on the image to see maybe there was something I’d missed, scroll though the wallet list and browse other people’s collections, tap the link to his Twitter page that had gone silent. His last tweet was an inane comment about how _Jack and Jill_ was the only motion picture to ever capture the suffering of the silent jet-lag-averse minority.  Then something bizarre happened. Three new people claimed the POAP, suddenly three new addresses on the list of people who had met him (37 total). I allowed myself to believe that perhaps this meant he was alive. I didn’t fully understand the tech, but how could someone claim his POAP without actually meeting him, without actually touching their phone to his physical card? From everything I’d been told, it wasn’t possible. I stewed on it for days and restless nights. What was I missing? I _had_ never _seen_ the body. Had anyone? Was this all some crazy mixup? Would we all be on _The Today Show_ next month laughing about the worst and, eventually, best saga we would ever experience in our fleeting lives? I searched poap.xyz for answers but it only convinced me further there had been some fucked up misunderstanding at the scene of the wreck. Maybe he’d hit his head and now he was out there lost and confused and alone and didn’t know who he was and just discovered this piece of plastic in his pocket and when someone tapped their phone to it they got something called a POAP. But wouldn’t he have his driver’s license, then, too, and be able to contact his family? Maybe he’d forgotten what a driver’s license even meant. He was a beggar under a bridge eating scraps of bread bowls and smoking cigarette butts off the ground muttering about crypto. Why had nobody bothered to stop and check if he was all right, if he had loved ones out there looking for him! I decided POAP customer support might help. I probably should have reached out first thing. They were very friendly in the live chat. I told them my friend was baffled because he had lost his card for distributing POAPs but now he saw people claiming his POAP. How could this be possible? Had someone else found the card and started using it? _Thanks for reaching out! That is rather odd, let me investigate further_. I provided the event ID # and less than a minute later they replied. _Good news! Those mints you see are simply people who had previously reserved this POAP with an email address. Now they are minting it to an Ethereum wallet. So don’t worry, it seems the POAPs are safe and sound and only collectors who actually met your friend IRL are minting them!_ Oh, of course, I replied, and told them my friend was relieved. _I bet! Is there anything else I can be of assistance with today?_ I told them no and they thanked me for trying out POAPs and sent me a link to an article differentiating “reserving” a POAP with an email address vs. “minting” a POAP to an Ethereum wallet. --- *Originally published on [POAPs Gone Wild](https://paragraph.com/@poapsgonewild/back-from-the-dead)*