Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP), known as one of the most recognizable Web3 projects for digital attendance collectibles, is shutting down after over five years in operation. Co-founder Isabel Gonzalez made the announcement public on Monday, explaining the company could not build a sustainable business without straying from its original mission, which it was unwilling to do. The decision follows several months in maintenance mode and ends a company behind millions of blockchain-based attendance badges.
POAP became popular with event organizers, brands, and crypto communities, offering an easy way to distribute digital collectibles marking participation in conferences, online events, hackathons, and group milestones. Before deciding to close, more than 46,000 issuers minted almost 7.6 million POAP badges. Those collectibles remain onchain, but the fate of POAP’s hosted services, including its gallery, APIs, and metadata support, is uncertain, since no shutdown schedule has been released.
POAP Confirms Shutdown After Months in Maintenance Mode
The shutdown follows changes that started earlier this year. On March 16, POAP set its platform into maintenance mode, stopped working on new features, and halted onboarding new issuers. Existing issuers, collector tools, APIs, and integrations kept running, but the company warned some services could slow down as they assigned fewer resources to the platform.
The latest announcement confirms POAP is closing rather than simply pausing growth. The company has not named a final service date or mapped out a migration plan. There is also no update on staffing or whether anyone else might take over the platform’s infrastructure.
Isabel Gonzalez pointed out the biggest hurdle was finding a business model that could support POAP for the long haul without losing the spirit that made it so popular. She said crypto’s funding cycles and distribution patterns made it tough to build something sustainable without compromising the platform’s purpose.
Even with the company closing, POAP badges already issued will stay tied to their owners’ wallet addresses, since they are recorded on public blockchains. Access through POAP’s gallery, apps, and metadata services depends on how long the company keeps up its infrastructure.
Millions of Collectibles Remain Onchain as Future Services Stay Uncertain
POAP launched at ETHDenver in 2019 with roughly 100 badges for hackathon participants. It grew into a platform for recording event attendance through blockchain collectibles. Organizers usually passed out QR codes or claim links so people could mint a badge tied to a specific event. Badges use the ERC-721 NFT standard, but POAP later moved from Ethereum to Gnosis Chain, cutting transaction costs. That made distributing collectibles easier for bigger groups and events.
During its growth POAP attracted organizations including Coinbase, American Express, Warner Music Group, and Bayer, along with many crypto communities. The company says almost 7.6 million collectibles were minted by more than 46,000 issuers, making POAP one of the most used attendance-based NFT platforms.
POAP raised $10 million in January 2022 in a seed funding round led by Archetype and Sapphire Sport. After offering its services largely free, POAP began charging some commercial issuers in an attempt to build sustainable revenue, while keeping personal and community use free.
Despite those efforts, Gonzalez’s latest statement makes it clear that POAP could not settle on a sustainable business model. Its closure places it among other Web3 projects that built strong followings but could not sustain operations. The company is closing, but the collectibles are not disappearing, since they were minted on public networks. The real uncertainty is around the services that help users access and manage those collectibles.
As of August 4, POAP’s main website, collector pages, and developer documentation were still online. However, the company has not said how long those services will stick around. There is also no word on whether another group will keep up the APIs, metadata, or user interfaces after POAP shuts down.
Badge ownership itself does not change for collectors. The company’s next official update is expected to explain service deadlines, plans for data preservation, and whether the open collectible standard proposal will carry on under a new structure.
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