In Brief:
- ConstitutionDAO raising funds to bid on a surviving rare copy of the U.S. Constitution
- The rare copy of the US Constitution is about to be up for auction by Sotheby on 18th November 2021, 6 p.m.
- The project’s members are in touch with the auction house operator Sotheby’s and crypto exchange FTX to try to make this happen.
A decentralized autonomous organization named ConstitutionDAO is raising funds for a unique artefact- “500 printings of the US Constitution from 1787” which will be auctioned off by Sotheby this week.
This rare original copy of the US Constitution, which might have been handled by Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin or George Washington, is set to go up for auction on 18th November 2021, 6 p.m.
The ConstitutionDAO is trying to raise enough cryptocurrency on juicebox in the form of ether or ETH for buying this copy of the U.S.Constitution at the auction. Unlike the regular- technical DAO, in ConstitutionDAO there are no tokens grouping everyone together or allowing them to control the next course of the project. Meanwhile the group is connected via a dedicated Discord server.
Graham Novak, one of the architects of the project said on Discord.“In the ethos and spirit of Web3, we intend to purchase The Constitution and find a home for it among the world’s finest artifacts to be preserved and enjoyed by all. We the people plan to preserve the document for the people. The ownership, of course, will reside within the DAO. We’ll fractionalize, NFT-ify, and mem-ify in the way that we do.”
On November 12, the Twitter account of ConstitutionDAO said that it was trying to raise $20 million as the estimated range is $15 to $20 million. Although it could exceed the higher range.
Interestingly, Crypto exchange FTX has said it would exchange the cryptocurrency raised by this project into U.S. dollars to make the purchase, expecting that the DAO will win the auction. Also, the ConstitutionDAO participant Julian Weisser disclosed on Discord that the group has been in talks with FTX but hasn’t officially made up their mind on the offer that is whether to use the exchange for this purpose or not.
Recently , ConstitutionDAO participant Alice Ma revealed that the group has been in discussion with Sotheby’s team as well. Ma informed how the auction house recommended that the DAO should either have a museum bid on its behalf or use a limited liability company to do so. For that matter, the project is taking into account both of these recommendations, particularly the museum suggestion.
As updated by Alice, Sotheby’s will accept the project’s ether (ETH) balance as a proof that it has the funds necessary to bid on the auction. The project hasn’t disclosed the total fundings they have raised as of yet or if it has already reached the $20 million mark.
If the project is successful, it is probable that it might go for something like community ownership. This approach is common in the crypto space, wherein an item is fractionalized into many tokens and then distributed among token holders.
In recent times, some DAOs have become proud owners of relics, items of great cultural and historical importance. It has also pervaded all and beyond the diversified ranges of domain for instance recently, the Digital art collective PleasrDAO purchased “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin”, a rare album by Wu-Tang Clan for $4 million in cryptocurrency.
About the artefact :
As for the artefact, it is one of thirteen surviving copies of the Official Edition of the Constitution, out of the 500 other printings that were first issued for submission to the Continental Congress. As per Sotheby’s website, this was the very first appearance of the Constitution in its final form. Sotheby’s senior vice president Selby Kiffer informed that only two such copies are in private hands.
It is worth noting that the present copy was purchased from Sotheby’s by S. Howard Goldman in 1988 and was a part of his collection along with his other historical American books and manuscripts. After Howard’s death in 1997, his widow, Dorothy Goldman, became the custodian of the Constitution.
The proceeds of the auction will go to Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation.
