In Brief:
- ConstitutionDAO was “outbid” by a private bidder in the auction for a rare copy of the US Constitution.
- The Constitution was sold for $43.2 Million after including the auction fees.
- Even when they had raised over $47 Million, ConstitutionDAO did not make the winning offer.
- On this, an organizer explained that there wouldn’t have been enough money left over to maintain the Constitution.
In a dramatic turn of events, ConstitutionDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization was “outbid” by a private bidder in the auction for a rare copy of the US Constitution.
The auction that took place yesterday at Sotheby was gavelled at $41 Million even though ConstitutionDAO had managed to raise over $47 Million as per juice box.
Note that after including the auction fees, the Constitution was sold for $43.2 Million.
Many people wondered why organizers stopped short of making the winning offer even when they had raised over $47 Million.
One organizer in the group’s Discord server said that they stopped the bidding where they did because there wouldn’t have been enough money left over for the “proper care and maintenance” required for the keeping of the Constitution.
ConstitutionDAO tweeted,”We didn’t get the Constitution, but we made history nonetheless. We broke records for the largest crowdfund for a physical object and most money crowdfunded in 72h, which will of course be refunded to everyone who participated.”
Their tweet further read, “You will be able to get a refund of your pro rata amount (effectively minus the gas fees) through Juicebox. A total of 17,437 donors had taken part in the raising with a median donation of 206.26, some of these donations came for wallets that were initialized for the first time”.
ConstitutionDAO contributor Alice Ma commented, “There are many people who have already said they want to leave their funds in the wallet, and we are deciding between several options internally for that scenario!”
It all started when, on 12th November, the Twitter account of ConstitutionDAO said that it was trying to raise $20 million to buy a rare copy of the US Constitution which was under the custody of Philanthropist, Dorothy Goldman. And in just a matter of 4 days, had raised over $47 million.
