# POAP to enter maintenance mode March 16th, 2026

Source: https://x.com/izgnzlz/status/2032181803155333626
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/POAP-to-enter-maintenance-mode-March-16th-2026?index=0x69b32f0664c10a69ab2812934e954f1936657f1094c6639aa8c62de4e4414945eea7671e
Submitted by freeatnet.eth on 2026-03-12 UTC, 4 upvotes, 1 comment

## Summary

POAP is moving into maintenance mode starting March 16, 2026, because growth stayed limited to a niche and it could not evolve into the broader infrastructure the team believes the ecosystem needs. From March 16, new issuers will no longer be able to access the issuer interfaces, while existing issuers keep their tools, created POAPs remain intact, and collector interfaces and APIs continue to function. The platform will no longer be actively developed and some operations may run more slowly. The team says it is focusing on an open collectibles standard and a platform offering a canonical implementation, and it has not yet decided whether the current platform will connect to the new system.

## Article

Over the past several years, POAP has been used by hundreds of communities and thousands of issuers to create and experiment with digital collectibles. What began as a simple way to give crypto natives collectibles for attending hackathons became something much broader. Individuals, community organizers, and teams used POAP to mark moments, recognize participation, and build small systems of engagement around shared experiences.

Running a platform in the wild is different from designing one in theory, and running POAP gave us a front row seat to understand how digital collectibles are used in practice. Over time we saw which patterns repeated, where the tooling helped, and where it did not. The platform found a clear niche and a group of users who made thoughtful use of it. At the same time, POAP did not expand much beyond that niche. Growth was limited, and POAP could not evolve into the broader infrastructure we believe the ecosystem needs.

As a result, we are making the decision to move POAP into maintenance mode starting March 16th, 2026. This means a few practical things.

Starting March 16, new issuers will no longer be able to access the issuer interfaces. Existing issuers will continue to have access to the tools they already use, and POAPs that have been created will remain intact. Collector interfaces will not be affected by this change. APIs and existing integrations will continue to function.

What will change is that the platform will no longer be actively developed. Some operations may also run more slowly as we reduce the resources allocated to the service.

This decision allows us to focus our effort elsewhere.

Running POAP has made it clear to us that digital collectibles are still an emerging medium. The tools that exist today often reflect the constraints of the systems they were built on, rather than the needs of the communities using them. If collectibles are going to become a durable part of how people organize events, recognize participation, and preserve shared moments, they will need better foundations.

Our work going forward is focused on building that foundation.

We are working on developing a standard for open collectibles, and a platform that offers a canonical implementation. The goal is to create a system that can sustainably support a truly permissionless model for creating collectibles for anything a community or issuer might want to commemorate. The current version of POAP has taught us a great deal about what such a system needs to support.

Moving the existing product into maintenance mode gives us the space to pursue that work with full attention.

We want to acknowledge the communities and issuers who have used POAP over the past few years. Many of the most interesting ideas about digital collectibles did not come from us but from the people experimenting with the tools. The patterns we observed in those experiments have shaped how we think about the next iteration of POAP.

The current platform may eventually connect to the new system once it is ready, though that is still to be determined. For now, the priority is to build the next layer of infrastructure in a way that reflects what we have learned.

For existing issuers, nothing changes on March 16 beyond it being no longer possible to invite new POAP issuers. Your collectibles remain available and the tools you rely on continue to function.

We will share more about the direction of the new platform as that work progresses.

Thank you to everyone who helped test the limits of what this first version could do.

## Comments

**misha**: I really like POAPs actually. This news has me worried. But lately reading more about crypto sunsets than startups. Maybe do a quick Kiwi POAP before they go into maintenance mode :)