Gmicrochains. At Linera, community is a core tenet of our protocol. As we’ve pioneered The Real-Time Blockchain through the development of user-centric microchains, we’ve also prioritized building a strong, engaged audience that reflects our values of quality, curiosity, and integrity. One of our most effective tools in achieving this has been our strategic use of POAPs (Proof of Attendance Protocol).
Through carefully integrating POAPs into our campaigns this year, we’ve doubled our X/Twitter following, significantly increased our Discord membership, and deepened our community engagement across channels.
Here’s how we did it—and how POAPs have become a cornerstone of our comprehensive community-building playbook:
What Are POAPs and Why Use Them?
POAPs serve as onchain digital proofs, verifying participation in an event or activity—whether offline or online. They act as both a badge of honor for attendees and a way to incentivize continued engagement. For Linera, they don’t just document mere attendance, but also serve as fixed evidence of actions taken at specific points in time as we chart through our roadmap and mission. They’ve become a powerful tool to:
Commemorate milestones
Reward active participation
Encourage widespread involvement in our ecosystem
Build a stronger, more committed community
POAPs are free to mint for the user, so all they need is an email or EVM-compatible wallet address to start collecting. They’re accessible to anyone with basic computing resources and an internet connection, regardless of their location—a perfect entry point into the world of Web3. By tying POAPs to events, milestones, and challenges at Linera, we’ve created an ecosystem where members feel valued, incentivized, and part of our growth story over time.
How Linera Scaled Growth with POAPs
1. Incentivizing Weekly Community Hour Calls
Starting in June 2024, we began issuing POAPs for our weekly Community Hour. These livestreams serve as a platform for updates on Linera, AMAs with the team and partners, and direct community interaction—from weekly meme challenges to Internet Game tournaments.
Weekly Rewards: Attendees earn POAPs by submitting their wallet addresses during the call to ephemeral Discord channels.
Raffles: In addition to earning the POAPs themselves, the number of POAPs one holds increases the chances of winning our weekly raffle of $100 USDC via POAP.fun—which we raffle off on the call.
Gamified Engagement: We introduced tiered Discord roles—Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Chains—based on activity levels on our server. To mint a Community Hour POAP, users need one of these Leveled-Up Roles. These roles determine eligibility for specific POAPs at different points in time—more on that later.
Results: Weekly attendance grew rapidly, increasing 7x as we had to cap POAP issuance at around 700, regularly reaching the maximum number of accounts that could join our stage channel. These calls became a linchpin for community interaction and awareness.
2. Commemorating Major Milestones
POAPs marked pivotal moments in Linera’s journey, from roadmap releases to strategic partnerships:
Testnet Archimedes Launch (Nov 2024): We issued a special POAP celebrating the transformation of our devnet into a decentralized testnet with external validators on a dedicated Space. Additional POAPs tied to Discord roles cemented participants’ community status at the time of the launch.
Partnerships: Collaborations with Argument and Space and Time for zero-knowledge proof integrations were celebrated with live X/Twitter Spaces—each offering unique POAPs to attendees.
3. Expanding Social Engagement
Social questing platforms like StackUp and Intract became a cornerstone of our strategy, driving engagement through campaigns like “Introducing Linera Microchains on Rust” and “Advancing in Linera Microchains.” These initiatives rewarded participants for completing educational and technical quests, introducing thousands to Linera’s groundbreaking Layer-1 blockchain. POAPs, issued as digital certifications, recognized their achievements and participation.
Beyond recognition, these POAPs enable cross-channel proofs. For example, collecting a POAP through a StackUp or Intract campaign and joining our Guild grants the “Quest Completer” role on Discord. Similarly, holding a hackathon winner POAP automatically assigns the “Hackathon Winner” role. This system allows community members to showcase their achievements not only in their web3 wallets but also across their profiles, reinforcing their contributions and engagement.
4. Fostering Real-World Connections
In-person events allowed us to connect with the community face-to-face, and issue POAPs to those who took the time to meet us at large Web3 events.
Consensus 2024 and EthCC7: POAPs commemorated attendees who met us at these events, offering a personal touch to our presence.
Team Events: A POAP issued during our Prague team offsite in June 2024 not only celebrated the occasion but sparked discussions within the community about future uses of POAPs. For an all-remote team, these exclusive POAPs serve as a unifying symbol, bringing together members across the organization.
5. Encouraging Hackathon Participation
Hackathons have been instrumental in fostering developer engagement. In addition to a cash prize for the winners, we issued a general POAP to all who participated, as well as one of a kind POAPs dedicated to the winning submissions. These digital proofs essentially served as trophies.
Spring 2024 Hackathon: Unique POAPs for winners added an extra layer of prestige to the Linera-run event.
Next Top Blockchain Startup Hackathon: Custom 1-of-1 POAPs for tiered winners further incentivized participation in a crowded public hackathon.
6. Encouraging Developer Contributions
As a fully open-source project, we particularly recognize and celebrate the valuable contributions of our developer community through GitPOAPs—a brand of POAPs minted via the dedicated GitPOAP platform to honor meaningful work in open-source projects.
2024 Linera Documentation Contributor: Contributors who have their submissions accepted and merged into our developer manual at linera.dev receive this GitPOAP.
2024 Linera Protocol Contributor: Similarly, those who contribute to our core protocol repository are awarded this exclusive GitPOAP.
Combating Farming and Preserving Value
As our popularity grew, so did the risk of POAP farming. To maintain their value, we tightened our issuance requirements:
Guild Integration: To mint a POAP, users needed to follow us on X/Twitter, join our Discord, and meet specific activity thresholds. We distribute the POAPs and set these requirements layered on top of an allowlist via our Guild, which allows us to define roles across channels and build custom minting experiences.
Ephemeral Channels: During the claim process, we open a Discord channel live on the call that only gives those with the Lineran role posting privileges. The channel remains open for about 5 minutes, ensuring that only those who are present on the call and paying attention are able to join the allowlist. This forms the basis of the allowlist on Guild.
Leveled-Up Chains: Activity-based Discord roles ensured that only genuine community members could claim POAPs, creating a system that rewarded true engagement.
Impact and Results
By incorporating POAPs into our strategy, Linera achieved:
Significant Growth: On X/Twitter, we more than doubled from 21.2k in early February to 55.6k at the time of this post (+162%). In that same time frame, on Discord, we grew from 20.7k to 53.9k (+160%).
Sustained Engagement: Weekly Community Hour calls saw increasing attendance and consistent activity.
Meaningful Connections: POAPs provided tangible rewards for participation, creating a deeper sense of belonging within the community.
Looking Ahead: 2025
As we prepare for next year’s hackathons, quests, partnerships, events, and the next phase of our Testnet rollout, POAPs will continue to play a central role in incentivizing participation and documenting contributors’ onchain activity.
These tokens are more than just collectibles—they’re an immutable record of the community’s journey with Linera.
Final Thoughts
POAPs have been a game-changer for Linera, enabling us to build a vibrant, engaged community while commemorating key moments in our growth. We use POAPs to incentivize engagement in our Weekly Community Hour Calls, commemorate major milestones, expand social reach, foster real-world connections, drive hackathon participation, and reward meaningful developer contributions.
As we continue to scale, these digital badges will remain a cornerstone of our playbook, fostering deeper connections and rewarding those who join us on our mission to revolutionize Web3 with The Real-Time Blockchain.