ConstitutionDAO PEOPLE was an experiment that has been disbanded.
Contents:
General information
In November 2021, a group of web3 enthusiasts came together as a decentralized autonomous organization with the common goal of buying a copy of the US Constitution at Sotheby's. There are only 13 original physical copies of the US Constitution, meaning this auction has sparked a competitive bidding battle. Even though the group managed to raise over $40 million in ETH. It failed and was bought out by Ken Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund manager and CEO of Citadel.
The blockchain platform did not have a single source of origin, but instead can be seen as an evolution of grassroots fundraising movements that led to meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. In just a few days, the DAO has raised over $47 million from over 17,000 donors, with an average donation of $206. It also sparked a viral movement on Twitter that hailed the DAO's efforts to create memes.
The key members of the DAO were:
- Brian Wagner;
- Liminal Warmth;
The project announced its dissolution after a failed attempt to purchase one of the most valuable and iconic documents in US history. All donations are returned.
History of the ConstitutionDAO PEOPLE project
The DAO constitution was another example of a grassroots internet movement, leveraging establishment symbols with the help of cryptocurrencies. Similar to what happened with GameStop, the DAO Constitution directed the virtual power of the masses to make real history barely.
Interesting facts of the project:
| Server | Within a few hours, the DAO Discord server grew by several thousand people and eventually reached 20k members in just over a week. |
| Donations | The DAO used Juicebox to receive Eth donations and raised north of $47 million, which would easily be enough to win the auction, if it weren't for the auction house's fees and document storage costs, which were not accounted for by the DAO. |
Ironically, the auction was won by Ken Griffin, declared anti-Bitcoin. After this saga, the DAO Constitution announced the dissolution, as it had planned in case of failure from the very beginning. He cited technical and administrative requirements as reasons for this, and donations can be collected for an indefinite period of time through the project's website.
Security and tokenomics
The DAO Constitution was a non-profit organization, affiliated with the LLC DAO, which was legally owned by two members of the DAO. The PEOPLE project token is available in the Uniswap (V3) and 0x protocols. Because the DAO cannot own a copy of the ConstitutionDAO, its authors would not receive partial responsibility for the Constitution. Instead, PEOPLE is a governance mark that would give its owners a say in where the ConstitutionDAO would be placed, i.e. in which museum the physical copy would be housed.