Crypto Investors’ Attempt to Buy a Copy of Us Constitution

ConstitutionDAO raised $40 million to get the document.

What Is ConstitutionDAO?

ConstitutionDAO is a group of people that met randomly on the internet, united by the goal to buy a copy of the Constitution.

It all began with Austin Cain and Graham Novak, 25-year-olds from Atlanta, working in the finance sector. They started a Discord chat - which now has more than 8,000 members - to pitch the idea.

Daniel Monteagudo, the person that runs the ConstitutionDAO Twitter account, joined after a friend of his introduced him to the group. Monteagudo invested $1,000 of his own money.

For just a week, the group managed to raise over $40 million worth of ETH on Juicebox.

The Auction

On Thursday, auction house Sotheby announced its selling an early copy of the Constitution. It’s one of the 11 surviving ones from the first printing of the final text. It was made for delegates of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and Continental Congress.

The auction house offered the copy for the price of $41 million. Thanks to the added fees and buyer's premium, the final cost reached $43.2 million.

As a result, ConstitutionDAO didn’t win the bid. Even though they managed to raise an impressive sum, it was not enough.

The group posted on Twitter: “While this wasn't the outcome we hoped for, we still made history tonight with ConstitutionDAO. This is the largest crowdfund for a physical object that we are aware of — crypto or fiat. We are so incredibly grateful to have done this together with you all and are still in shock that we even got this far.”