You’ve received a link to claim a POAP, but now what?! This tutorial will walk you through everything necessary to put your nocoin days behind you. It’s a fast, free, and an easy foray into the world of web3 (Tried this tutorial and don’t agree? Don’t have a link to claim a POAP? Contact Me and we’ll get it sorted).
Difficulty: Easy
“The hardest part was finding my phone”
Time: 10 minutes
“From start to finish, downloading and setting up the wallet, minting the POAP, and verifying it on the blockchain, took me ten minutes”
POAP stands for "Proof Of Attendance Protocol" and it is primarily a mechanism to demonstrate participation. You can think of it as a way of saving a ticket stub from an event that you attended. For a more formal introduction, check out the Official FAQ and the Official Documentation.
Fun Fact: POAP's originated in 2019 at ETHDenver, the largest and longest running Ethereum event in the world.
In order to mint a POAP, you'll first need to claim your place on the blockchain. A POAP is stored using the same methods as cryptocurrency because it is a digital asset, specifically an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. If you use the free xDAI option, minting consumes approximately 0.000058 kWh of energy. In practical terms, the entire process of minting and transferring this NFT to your wallet is equivalent to lighting a an 8 watt bulb for less than 30 seconds. For comparison, this is about the same amount of energy used as sending two tweets on Twitter. If you don't already have one, it is relatively fast and easy to setup a new wallet. The hard parts are understanding what it all means, and securely storing your pass phrase, but if you've come this far you’re well on you way!
How To: Create a Crypto Wallet
The exact approach here will vary for each wallet, but you will need to identify your Ethereum Receive address. If you are using Trust Wallet, simply open the app, select "Receive" and then select "Ethereum" (or "xDAI"). It doesn’t matter which one you choose because xDAI is a layer 2 solution built on top of Ethereum.
The receive address displayed is your PUBLIC address which is safe to share, and the QR code is simply a link to the address. Note that the public address is really the only thing you should ever share related to your wallet. Reminder: never share or enter your private key, or any related derivation of your seed phrase, even if someone seems really convincing that you need to provide more!
After clicking your POAP claim link, you simply enter your PUBLIC Ethereum address (You can see above that my address is: 0x7A2eF71816ebd7502f8E1a5eeC6c476fA5483098). Ensure the box is CHECKED for “Free minting in xDAI” (you can always pay to move your L2 xDAI to the L1 Ethereum mainnet at any time in the future, but it’s not necessary).
Although you can claim your POAP to your email address, you will need to act fast, else the option to mint will expire (usually 30 days from the event). Using an ETH address will not only mint the POAP, but also transfer the token to your wallet.
What would a crypto tutorial be if you didn’t actually go and see your indelible entry in the blockchain?
There are lots of explorers out there, but here’s an example for you to copy/paste this URL, replacing my ETH address with your ETH address. This should be available within a few seconds to a few minutes of minting:
[<https://blockscout.com/xdai/mainnet/address/0x7A2eF71816ebd7502f8E1a5eeC6c476fA5483098/token-transfers#transfers>](<https://blockscout.com/xdai/mainnet/address/0x7A2eF71816ebd7502f8E1a5eeC6c476fA5483098/token-transfers#transfers>)
You’ll see what will seem like a ton of random numbers on that page. The transaction which contains the minting/transfer of the POAP token will look something like this:
The succesful minting and transfer confirms that the token is now in your possession. Congratulations, you now own your first NFT! You can then click on your token ID (example: TokenID [2992597]) and see your token along with more details.