Web3 startup the Proof of Attendance Protocol, or simply POAP, which turned attendance at conferences, concerts, and brand events into blockchain badges, is winding down after more than five years, co-founder Isabel Gonzalez said, sharpening a retreat the company had previously framed as a pivot.
"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. Building on a fragile and quickly evolving stack, in the middle of an incredible hype cycle, only added to the challenges," Gonzalez wrote on X.
- POAP allowed organizers to issue NFT souvenirs on the ERC-721 standard, showing that someone attended an event.
- Its customers included Coinbase, American Express, Google and Adidas, while infrastructure provider Goldsky said in March 2025 that the platform powered more than 7 million badges across over 40,000 events.
- POAP Inc. raised $10 million in January 2022 from investors led by Archetype and Sapphire Sport.
A pivot becomes a wind-down
POAP placed its platform in maintenance mode in mid-March, preventing new issuers from joining but leaving existing issuers, integrations and collector tools running.
At the time, Gonzalez said POAP would redirect resources toward an open, permissionless standard for digital collectibles. Existing coverage consequently described the move as "a pivot, not a shutdown."
Four months later, however, Gonzalez did not mention that proposed standard or say whether development continues. "It's too soon for me to say what's next," she wrote, adding that she was considering go-to-market strategies involving artificial intelligence.
- The Coinformer verified on Monday that POAP's collector browser and issuer login web pages remain online. Gonzalez announced no server closure date or migration deadline.
- The company had introduced commercial-use charges in 2023 to create what it called "a sustainable POAP ecosystem."
- Three years later, Gonzalez said sustainability was precisely what the business never achieved.