ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) was an experiment for an original copy of the U.S. Constitution auction in a single-purpose DAO in November 2021, which has now been dissolved. The group raised $47 million of ETH cryptocurrency in 7 days, but lost to a bid of $43.2 million in the Sotheby's auction to hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. The organizers of ConstitutionDAO believed that they would have insufficient funding to protect, insure, and move the artifact if they had made a higher bid.
The organizers made it possible to withdraw contributions from the Juicebox crowdfunding protocol, but due to Ethereum fees around $23 million had yet to be refunded. One contributor reported as having to pay $70 in fees to donate $200, and another $70 to get it refunded. The median contributor had donated $217 to the project, and some fees were more than the value of the donation.
PEOPLE is the proof-of-donation ERC-20 token issued by ConstitutionDAO on JuiceBox decentralized crowdfunding platform. It represented governance rights in the DAO. During the crowdfunding period, 1 ETH donation will makes you were qualified to claim 1,000,000 PEOPLE token.
ConstitutionDAO has a core team with the following organizers:
- Graham Novak, the guy who first discovered the Sotheby’s auction.
- Julian Weisser, co-founder of On Deck, personal investor of Clubhouse
- Austin Cain, also the other starter of ConstitutionDAO, partnership of Polygon.
- And so much more web3 talent contributors like: Alice Ma, Miguel and Nicole Williams
We’re buying the US Constitution. For the first time in thirty-three years, one of eleven surviving copies of the Official Edition from the Constitutional Convention will be publicly auctioned by Sotheby's. It is the only copy that is still owned by private collectors. The proceeds from the auction will be given to a charity that has been established by the current owner. ConstitutionDAO is a DAO that is pooling together money to win this auction. We intend to put The Constitution in the hands of The People.
