Constitution DAO Raises over $40M Ether in Bid To Buy The U.S. Constitution

The original print of the United States Constitution has only 13 surviving copies. After a high-stakes bidding battle that captivated the Internet&39s interest and imagination, a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) recently stated that it had lost its bid to successfully purchase one of the original copies of the U.S. Constitution from a recent Sotheby&39s auction.

The United States Constitution sold for just over $43 million at Sotheby&39s this past Thursday. The winner was also recently revealed to be none other than hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who is both the founder and current CEO of Citadel.

Although defeated, the daring rise of the DAO, a collection of individuals who had connected with each other via the Internet, is nevertheless a unique situation that must be examined further.

What happened?

The group of individuals had been identified as ConstitutionDAO. Following a brief burst of enthusiasm on Twitter, when some members of the organization incorrectly declared that they were victorious, the group then issued a follow-up statement clarifying what had actually transpired. According to the announcement, the organization may have lost the bid but it nevertheless made history by raising the biggest amount of money through crowdfunding within a time period of under 72 hours.

According to one organizer in the DAO&39s Discord channel, the group was defeated because it did not earn enough money to construct the reserve needed to consistently preserve and maintain the document. Moreover, the participants of the DAO would reportedly receive their money back, excluding gas fees.

Constitution DAO&39s bid had witnessed thousands of contributors continuously donating via ETH. The founders of the organization had gathered for the first time just over seven days ago which was around the time that they began requesting funds. The group had carried out a campaign primarily using word-of-mouth tactics via Twitter as well as various other forms of social media.

The power of DAOs

The campaign, which was mostly fuelled by Twitter and a rapidly growing Discord server, provides a glimpse into what a community-driven effort where transparency, honesty, and shared ownership are the main driving forces would be like as we continue to make technological progress. The prospects provided by the decentralized autonomous organization framework are hence actively piquing people&39s curiosity and interest.

Furthermore, as dramatic as it may appear, the joy of welcoming individuals into the cryptocurrency community is therefore an exhilarating by-product of ConstitutionDAO. It allows users and members to enjoy the perks as well as overall experience of a fully decentralized community.

However, although the influx of new users may indeed be beneficial, it also necessitates that someone must educate those who are new to the industry regarding certain matters such as where their hard-earned money may actually be going. As a matter of fact, the ConstitutionDAO team felt the need to adjust their initial message from potentially &39owning a very small part of the U.S Constitution&39 to &39users shall receive governance tokens&39. This change had to be implemented relatively early on in order to ensure that the participants understood exactly how everything works and where their money will be allocated. Still, the success that the DAO had in gathering everyone together to achieve a common goal should not be understated.