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Burning Man
2026-08-31 09:49:57

Burning Man co-founder John Law says the event lost its anarchist soul as Silicon Valley moved in

Burning Man co-founder John Law says the desert gathering that began as a leaderless, anti-establishment experiment no longer resembles what its early builders created. In a recent essay published by SF Standard, Law argued that the event, once shaped by a small group of anarchist-minded creators with no owner and no fixed hierarchy, changed beyond recognition after Silicon Valley elites and capital poured in. Law traced the roots of Burning Man back to San Francisco’s underground culture in the late 1970s and to groups such as Suicide Club and Cacophony Society, which operated without a business model or formal structure. He said the early scene was closer to a temporary autonomous zone than a branded institution. He also pushed back on the idea that Burning Man began with a tightly defined philosophy, calling later frameworks such as the official “Ten Principles” a retrospective packaging of what had originally been a messy, improvised collective experiment. According to Law, the turning point came in the 1990s as the internet industry rose. After Wired put Burning Man on its cover in 1996, attendance grew from about 70 people in 1990 to 25,000 by 1999. He said wealthy tech figures became regulars, while high-priced tickets, luxury camps and organizational expansion turned the event into something closer to a large commercial institution than the egalitarian desert experiment he remembers.

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Burning Man co-founder John Law says the event lost its anarchist soul as Silicon Valley moved in
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POAP
2026-08-05 08:23:09

POAP Ends Further Development, Leaving On-Chain Memories but No Durable Business Model

POAP, the digital collectible project known for turning event attendance into on-chain badges, is shutting down further development after more than five years. Co-founder Isabel announced the decision on Aug. 3, prompting many early users to reopen their wallets and revisit badges tied to Ethereum conferences, hackathons, community gatherings and major moments such as the Merge. The badges remain visible on-chain, even as the team behind them steps away. The project began as an ERC-721 experiment at ETHDenver in February 2019 and later grew into one of crypto’s most recognizable participation credentials. By March 2020, POAP had appeared at more than 100 events and around 7,000 badges had been claimed. It later expanded into brand campaigns, including activations by Adidas and Estée Lauder, and saw one of its defining moments during Ethereum’s September 2022 Merge celebration, when more than 41,000 people watched the official party and participants placed more than 366,000 pixels on a collaborative canvas. The report argues that POAP’s core tension resembled an earlier Web2 experiment: GetGlue, a check-in and digital sticker platform that also turned user activity into collectible artifacts but failed to build a lasting business. In POAP’s case, on-chain persistence solved the record-retention problem. It did not solve monetization. The same qualities that made POAP meaningful as a free, low-friction record of shared experience also made it difficult to turn into a sustainable company without undermining the product’s original purpose.

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POAP Ends Further Development, Leaving On-Chain Memories but No Durable Business Model
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