Crypto
Forays into blockchain, NFTs and POAPs live here. I write about minting POAP tokens at family events, celebrating Ethereum’s 10‑year anniversary by creating an NFT and even using monitoring services to keep my POAP feeds up and running.
- RSS has been around since 1999 and is still one of the most widely supported way to syndicate activity across the web. RSS is used by hundreds of different Feed Readers, which would be great for POAP to support. Equally important are services like IFTTT and Zapier that can take any RSS feed and use that as a trigger for automation. If every event offered an RSS feed of POAP claims, that could be used by event organizers to power a ton of automations when a token is claimed.
- Webhooks would also allow additional integrations with POAP events. Webhooks would be a great middle option between the full POAP API, and something simple like RSS. If you could register one, or even multiple, Webhooks for an event that would be triggered on a claim you could do even more powerful extensions into platforms like Zapier. Additionally this would allow an easy way for app developers to connect to POAP events and claims.
- Creating a POAP event is incredibly simple. You don’t need to even create an account, all you need is an email address. This is great to remove friction but it also means that anyone can create any event. POAP has put significant effort into the curation body and review process to make sure that events meet some basic standards. But there is no way to assert that an event is truly from the organization or event it describes. It would be great to be able to sign the event with your wallet! For example, my Birthday POAP would be more authentic if the event was signed by the thingelstad.eth wallet. This opens up a common set of issues associated with verification, but verifying that events are authentic would make those POAPs more meaningful.
- There is an opportunity to have POAPs for things that are bound to locations instead of times. There is already a POAP Geocaching app in the store and there has been at least a couple experiments like this. That would be a cool capability, but I would also think that POAPs that are well known to collect at locations would be very neat. I would make one for my house that visitors could collect (preferably signed by both thingelstad.eth and knoxave.eth!). Another use case I would love is a POAP for summiting a climb. If you removed time limitations, this would be ideal for restaurants and cafes to have a perpetual POAP you can claim for visiting their location.
- POAP events can currently be minted from a claim code, or reserved using an email address. The email option is a nice intent but it doesn’t do much. You reserve your POAP to mint later, even after the expiration date for the event. But until you mint it you will not show up on the list of token holders, and cannot do anything else. This is an okay feature but it is confusing. People tend to thing they are done after reserving with an email address. POAP should send reminder emails to nudge those that have reserved to move forward with minting. And it would be great for event organizers to be able to see reservations to help people get them minted.
- Better yet would be to have POAP provide a non-custodial wallet for users that don’t have one. This could work very similar to what Reddit has done to get Collectible Avatars working. In Reddit, you can provide your own wallet, or you can let Reddit make one for you. The wallet that it makes is completely real, and you have the choice of letting Reddit store the seed phrase to recover it, or you can manage it on your own. This would be ideal for POAP as well. With this capability you could get rid of the reservation process entirely by creating a wallet and managing it for people. If it is fully capable, like a Reddit wallet, you could even give it an ENS name and add it to a MetaMask or Rainbow if you wanted.
- Sponsoring a contest.
- Submitting a design to a contest.
- Volunteers managing a contest.
- Volunteers sending a newsletter (see below).
- Volunteers hosting a community call.
- Winning a contest is already rewarded with the bounty. Governance tokens should be given equally to any artist that participates in a contest. Winning should not be a factor for governance tokens.
- Community call attendance is already rewarded with POAPs, and that should continue. That rewards engagement, and governance tokens reward contribution. However, a volunteer hosting a community call should be rewarded.
POAP Wishlist
POAP (pronounced poe-app) is one of my favorite crypto application. There is a good overview of what POAPs are for. I think POAPs are a great way of capturing memories and events, and potential creating connection and community. I love that they are a crypto app that has no monetary component. I’ve created many POAP events as well as collecting many.
I love how POAP has gown thus far! The growth has been amazing and the organization has continued to create meaning and value. There are three areas that I would like to see POAP extend and wanted to explore in more detail.
Integration Hooks
POAP has an existing API which is great for people looking to create applications using POAPs. However, there is a bigger opportunity for POAP to offer simple integration hooks that could be used by many services and people to extend as they please.
Event Enhancements
POAP events themselves are pretty simple today. They have a summary, image, location (text), a URL, and relevant date information. Events could be enhanced in two material ways: authenticity and different types of events.
Web2/3 Onboarding
POAP is a great way to introduce people to crypto. I have personally introduced well over 100 people to crypto by giving out POAP tokens for various events. I’ve put together a very simple guide for people to claim their first POAP, including setting up a wallet! But more could be done here to make it easier for people.
I’m sure that POAP has a long roadmap and more things to work on than they have time to do. I think it would be great to see enhancements like the above because I think they hit on key areas that would drive POAP growth and adoption.
Enabling integration capabilities would allow POAP issuers to do things like send a Tweet every time a POAP is claimed. Additional authenticity would allow more confidence in POAPs, particularly if POAP Checkout is used to raise funds for a good event. And taking on more of the wallet tasks for users would make onboarding new people to POAP so much easier.
See also POAPathon Future Thoughts.
I’ve tried multiple times to participate in the KZG Ceremony for Ethereum and it times out after hours of waiting. The wait time is 10,143 minutes right now (7 days)!
POAP 6200232 at Joe's BONKalicious Bday.
POAPathon Future Thoughts
On the December 30th POAPathon Community Call there was a request for feedback on where POAPathon should go in 2023. I thought about it and here are my thoughts.
First some background. POAPathon is a community driven organization that facilitates design contests for people that need an image for a POAP event. I love creating POAP events, but I lack the design skills to create great images. I’ve used POAPathon a few times to get amazing images for my events. The process, collaboration, and results are great.
Some POAPathon designed events I’ve done include:
Magic Pines Summer of 2022
by kavishsethi
Jamie Thingelstad’s 51st Birthday
by designatum.eth
TeamSPS 2022 Kubb Tournament
by InsertGenericArtName
POAPathon DAO
Creating a DAO for POAPathon would enable two important functions:
Treasury for the DAO to fund programs, strategy, and execution.
To fund the treasury some percentage of all bounties should be directed to the DAO. POAPathon is providing direct value by creating this marketplace, and directing some of those funds into the treasury to be used by the DAO is best for the overall health of the community.
Governance tokens to enable decisions making.
Governance tokens have no monetary value and should never be bought or sold. These tokens would be distributed for actions done in the DAO. Examples would include:
There is likely a broad list of additional activities that could be rewarded with governance tokens, but there are two activities that should not be:
Serious thought would need to be given to governance token amounts for each activity. Fortunately POAPathan has been doing nearly all of these things for a year or more, and that historical set of activities could be used to model what the amounts should be. Future changes to reward amounts could be handled via a DAO vote.
Lastly, the DAO should be run on Gnosis Chain in recognition that POAPs are distributed on Gnosis Chain. (Disclosure: I am a Gnosis Chain validator.)
Contests On-chain
Today contests are created via a survey, USDC is sent to POAPathon, and the Contest Managers (POAPathon volunteers) are trusted to setup the contests and distribute the funds. To further embrace a trustless approach, contests could be moved to a smart contract and executed on-chain.
When a contest is created the USDC would be sent to a contract. That contract would then manage the distribution. Some percentage would be sent to the DAO immediately after the contest is approved. The remainder would be sent to the addresses of the winners.
There are a lot of options here. It would be ideal if the smart contract knew what artists had submitted art for the contest, and could even handle distributing governance tokens rewarding them for participating. The contest requester could then select the winners from a list of participating artists.
This would require development efforts that may go beyond the scope of volunteer engagement. If so, the DAO treasury could be used to fund the development of this.
Other Stuff
Focus on just POAPs. The POAPathon website suggests a variety of design services via contest (PFP, Logos), but POAP is right there in the name and focusing on just that use case may create more opportunity.
Email newsletter. Discord is great, but is only useful for very engaged community members. A newsletter that highlights the contests, selected artists, and more could be very compelling. This is a way to stay connected and broaden the reach of POAPathon. POAP has This week in POAP for example.
Give out more POAPs. POAPathon distributes a POAP for each Community Call. It would be cool to give a POAP for submitting a contest, and winning contests. I’ve created five contests now but there is no record of that outside of Discord history. I’d love to have a POAP from POAPathon showing that.
Closer connection with POAP itself. POAPathon could be part of the POAP process. There seems to be no mention of POAPathon on the POAP website that I could easily find. Getting in this flow of requests would help make sure there are enough contests to have a thriving community.
POAP 6177735 at Jamie Thingelstad's 51st Birthday.
POAP 6160261 at Proof of Attention Protocol - Test .
