ConstitutionDAO

Last updated

ConstitutionDAO was a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) formed in November 2021 to purchase an original copy of the United States Constitution. [1] The group raised $47 million in Ether cryptocurrency, but lost to a bid of $43.2 million in the Sotheby's auction. The organization was disbanded later that month. [2] [3]

Contents

Auction and refunds

ConstitutionDAO raised $47 million in Ether cryptocurrency, but lost to a bid of $43.2 million in the Sotheby's auction. The organizers of ConstitutionDAO believed that they would have had insufficient funding to "insure, store, and transport the document" if they had made a higher bid. [4]

The organizers said they would refund contributions, minus Ethereum fees. [4] Weeks after the event, around $23 million had yet to be refunded, partly due to these fees, with 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, [5] and some fees were more than the value of the donation. [6]

The Verge put the group's effort in the lineage of Internet movements like the GameStop short squeeze earlier that year. [4] Bloomberg News wrote that the effort "showed the power of the DAO ... has the potential to change the way people buy things, build companies, share resources and run nonprofits." [7]

ConstitutionDAO2

Another group of crowdfunders named ConstitutionDAO2 formed in 2022 to purchase a different copy of the original constitution, which was to be auctioned by Sotheby's. The group had only publicly raised $313,000 by the time Sotheby's postponed its December 2022 auction, [8] though the organization had also raised private funds. The group considered an offer to buy another edition of the constitution from the same printing press. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.

Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work. It is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States in terms of trading volume. The company was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. In May 2020, Coinbase announced it would shut its San Francisco, California, headquarters and change operations to remote-first, part of a wave of several major tech companies closing headquarters in San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vitalik Buterin</span> Canadian programmer (born 1994)

Vitaly Dmitrievich Buterin, better known as Vitalik Buterin, is a Canadian computer programmer and co-founder of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. In 2014, Buterin deployed the Ethereum blockchain with Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethereum</span> Open-source blockchain computing platform

Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-source software.

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), sometimes called a decentralized autonomous corporation (DAC), is an organization managed in whole or in part by decentralized computer program, with voting and finances handled through a blockchain. In general terms, DAOs are member-owned communities without centralized leadership. The precise legal status of this type of business organization is unclear.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robinhood Markets</span> US-based financial services company

Robinhood Markets, Inc., headquartered in Menlo Park, California, provides an electronic trading platform accessible via mobile app that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrency, as well as cryptocurrency wallets, credit cards and other banking services. The company's revenue comes primarily from payment for order flow, net interest income, and subscription fees. The company has 23.9 million funded customers, 13.7 million monthly active users, and $130 billion in assets under custody.

Gemini Trust Company, LLC (Gemini) is an American cryptocurrency exchange and custodian bank. It was founded in 2014 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.

Cryptocurrency and crime describe notable examples of cybercrime related to theft of cryptocurrencies and some methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies that have been used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Non-fungible token</span> Unique and non-interchangeable data

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. Initially pitched as a new class of investment asset, by September 2023, one report claimed that over 95% of NFT collections had zero monetary value.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Sun</span> Grenadian diplomat and tech entrepreneur

Justin Sun is a Chinese-born Grenadian cryptocurrency entrepreneur and business executive. He is the founder of TRON, a blockchain DAO ecosystem ATM system symbol and USDD, an algorithmic stablecoin issued by TRON DAO Reserve. He also works as an advisor to HTX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tron (cryptocurrency)</span> Blockchain computing platform

TRON is a decentralized, blockchain-based operating system with smart contract functionality, proof-of-stake principles as its consensus algorithm and a cryptocurrency native to the system, known as Tronix (TRX). It was established in March 2014 by Justin Sun and since 2017 has been overseen and supervised by the TRON Foundation, a non-profit organization in Singapore, established in the same year. It is open-source software.

Decentralized finance offers financial instruments without relying on intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks by using smart contracts on a blockchain, mainly Ethereum. DeFi platforms allow people to lend or borrow funds from others, speculate on price movements on assets using derivatives, trade cryptocurrencies, insure against risks, and earn interest in savings-like accounts. DeFi uses a layered architecture and highly composable building blocks. Some applications promote high-interest rates but are subject to high risk. Coding errors and hacks have been common in DeFi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dai (cryptocurrency)</span> Stablecoin cryptocurrency

Dai is a stablecoin token on the Ethereum blockchain which uses smart contracts designed to control supply to keep its value as close to one United States dollar as possible. Dai is maintained and regulated by MakerDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization composed of the owners of its governance token, MKR, who may propose and vote on changes to certain parameters in its smart contracts.

<i>CryptoPunks</i> Pioneering non-fungible token on Ethereum

CryptoPunks is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Ethereum blockchain. The project was launched in June 2017 by the Larva Labs studio, a two-person team consisting of Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson. The experimental project was inspired by the London punk scenes, the cyberpunk movement, and electronic music artists Daft Punk. The crypto art blockchain project was an inspiration for the ERC-721 standard for NFTs and the modern crypto art movement, which has since become a part of the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance ecosystems on multiple blockchains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Winkelmann</span> American digital artist

Michael Joseph Winkelmann, known professionally as Beeple, is an American digital artist, graphic designer, and animator known for selling NFTs. In his art, he uses various media to create comical, phantasmagoric works that make political and social commentary while using pop culture figures as references. British auction house Christie's has called him "A visionary digital artist at the forefront of NFTs". Beeple was introduced to NFTs in October 2020 and credits Pak for providing his first "primer" on selling NFTs. The NFT associated with Everydays: the First 5000 Days, a collage of images from his "Everydays" series, was sold on March 12, 2021, for $69 million in cryptocurrency to an investor in NFTs. It is the first purely non-fungible token to be sold by Christie's. The auction house had previously sold Block 21, an NFT with accompanying physical painting for approximately $130,000 in October 2020.

A rare Pepe or RarePepe is a variation on the "Pepe the Frog" internet meme, itself based on a character created by Matt Furie. The related Rare Pepe crypto project, created by various artists worldwide between 2016 and 2018, was based on the aforementioned meme and traded as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) recorded on the CounterParty platform. A total of 1,774 official cards were released for the project across 36 series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pak (creator)</span> Digital artist

Pak, formerly known as Murat Pak, is a digital artist, cryptocurrency investor, and programmer. Pak is known for creating the curation platform Archillect, an internet bot which reshares media based on user interactions with content hosted on various social platforms and for launching a platform for burning NFTs to receive tokens of the cryptocurrency Ash.

<i>Bored Ape</i> NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), often colloquially called Bored Apes or Bored Ape is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection built on the Ethereum blockchain with the ERC-721 standard. The collection features profile pictures of cartoon apes that are procedurally generated by an algorithm.

References

  1. ↑ Matthews, Karen (November 19, 2021). "Rare first printing of US Constitution sells for record $43M". AP News . Archived from the original on November 21, 2021. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  2. ↑ Lee, Isabelle (November 21, 2021). "ConstitutionDAO disbands after losing its bid to buy a copy of the Constitution". Markets Insider. Archived from the original on January 21, 2023. Retrieved January 21, 2023.
  3. ↑ Fox, Matthew (January 19, 2022). "Tokens of the defunct DAO that failed to buy a copy of the constitution are worth $300 million even after disbanding". news.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on January 28, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 Kastrenakes, Jacob (November 18, 2021). "ConstitutionDAO loses $43 million auction of rare US Constitution copy". The Verge . Archived from the original on December 27, 2021. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  5. ↑ Kastrenakes, Jacob (November 24, 2021). "Almost buying a copy of the Constitution is easy, but giving the money back is hard". The Verge. Archived from the original on March 5, 2022. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
  6. ↑ "ConstitutionDAO Is Shutting Down After Unrelenting Chaos". www.vice.com. Archived from the original on March 5, 2022. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
  7. ↑ Kharif, Olga (November 20, 2021). "Crypto Crowdfunding Goes Mainstream with ConstitutionDAO Bid". Bloomberg.com . Archived from the original on December 10, 2021. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  8. ↑ "Citing 'Strong Institutional Interest,' Sotheby's Halted Its Sale of a Rare Copy of the U.S. Constitution Just Hours Before the Auction". Artnet News . December 15, 2022. Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  9. ↑ Mattei, Shanti Escalante-De (December 14, 2022). "Sotheby's Sale of U.S. Constitution Is Suddenly Postponed, Causing Uncertainty for Crypto Enthusiasts". ARTnews.com . Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2022.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.