Each conference participant can receive 2 types of tokens. One – certificate token – is the equivalent of a physical certificate confirming participation in the conference. The second type – POAP – is the equivalent of confirmation of attendance in individual sessions.
For the participants of the Onchain Economy Conference in Warsaw, the organizers cover the costs of issuing tokens so that participants can collect their POAP for free.
Both types of tokens belong to a group of tokens called “soul bound tokens” (SBT), as they are permanently bound to a single address (person’s onchain “soul”) and cannot be transferred. Therefore, it is important to collect these types of tokens in addresses intended for publicly visible uses. Such addresses may contain public on-chain evidence of, e.g., participation in conferences, achievement of specific competences, credit history, membership in organizations, or even evidence of their use by a specific person identified through official documents (obtained thanks to decentralized KYC services). However, the user is wholly responsible for this address and shoul be carefull while using it, as the tokens collected ad the address may be irrevocably connected to it. On the other hand, it is the sole responsibility of the bearer to keep the key to the address safe.
To make them easier to use, you can use services that convert an address that is a string of alphanumeric characters into an easily remembered string of characters. In the Ethereum ecosystem, such a service is the Ethereum Name Service. Thanks to this, entering an address in a wallet that supports ENS, e.g. grzegorzsobiecki.eth (belonging to one of the organizers), the target address 0x57f1887a8BF19b14fC0dF6Fd9B2acc9Af147eA85 will be displayed. It is worth remembering that, similarly to the DNS system, which converts website addresses into machine IP numbers, domains in ENS can sometimes be misleading if their creator uses the name of a famous person or institution.
Both types of tokens are the result of the implementation of Proof of Concept and Proof of Capabilities by Dawid Walas. However, they are embedded on the Polygon main chains (mainnet) and provide the full usability of tokens – a permanent and unmodifiable record that certainly confirms the receipt of the token and the facts related to it.
POAP tokens
POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) is a type of NFT token whose main purpose is to confirm participation in specific events or moments in time. The name indicates that the key application of POAPs is to prove (cryptographically) that the token holder actually took part in a given meeting, conference, concert or online event. Each POAP is an NFT token (Non-Fungible Token), which means that it has a unique identifier. Each token is durable and unforgeable. A conference participant can easily collect their POAP by scanning a QR code or clicking a link (instructions below). The collected POAPs are stored in a cryptocurrency wallet. In this way, they become a digital collection. POAPs can be treated as souvenirs, but they also have utility value. They increasingly serve as a “passport” to exclusive communities, admission to meetings only for holders of a given POAP or the right to vote within a DAO. Like most onchain activities, issuing POAP tokens comes with some costs. However, the costs of issuing tokens are covered by the organizer and creator of the system.
Tokenized Attendance Certificates
This type of tokens are similar to POAP tokens, but they do not apply to individual events within the conference, but to the conference as a whole. The fundamental difference is that they are issued by the organizer and not “downloaded” by the participant using the provided QR code. Each token contains metadata, such as: the name of the event, date, information about the organizer or a description of the achievement/skill. But tokenized certificates of participation are the equivalent of a physical certificate and a confirmation by the organizer of the registration and participation in the event. POAP tokens can be collected by participants themselves. Certificates, on the other hand, are sent to participants to crypto addresses collected by the organizer. The certificate token will also include a graphical representation of the certificate, which can be shared on social media or even printed. The graphical representation of the certificate will include the token ID and a method of verifying the authenticity of the token and the authenticity of the token issuer.
Below we discuss how you can obtain tokens.
[Here will be a link to the procedure]