ConstitutionDAO
How a group of friends on the internet raised over $46 million to buy the U.S. Constitution
Summary
ConstitutionDAO was a single purpose acquisition DAO that raised over $46 million in an attempt to buy one of the thirteen remaining copies of the U.S. Constitution at Sotheby's on November 18th, 2021. What started as a joke in a group chat soon became a viral sensation with tens of thousands joining the Discord and contributing ETH to the project. Through their campaign, ConstitutionDAO gave the world a glimpse of the power of blockchains, decentralization, and community ownership.
Project configuration
With an auction estimate of $10-15 million at Sotheby's, ConstitutionDAO wanted to raise as much as possible and decided to set Payouts to Unlimited. In order to build trust with potential supporters, the campaign set up a 9/13 multisig with core team members and well-known figures in web3. Reserved Rate was also set to 0 to guarantee that everyone had equal access to PEOPLE tokens which would govern the document if they won the auction.
Success
ConstitutionDAO raised over $46 million in less than a week with over 19,000 payments made to the project. They were the second highest bidder on Sotheby's Lot 1787 and were unfortunately outbid by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin. Shortly following the auction, the core team set the Redemption Rate to 100% to allow all supporters to redeem their tokens and get their money back.
Conclusion
Even though ConstitutionDAO lost the auction, they onboarded thousands to crypto with a powerful vision of collectively owning an important piece of U.S. history. This historical document meant different things to different people, but using Juicebox they were able to pool resources and work together towards a common goal. To learn more about the ConstitutionDAO story, listen to episode 15, 16, and 17 of the Juicebox podcast: https://podcast.juicebox.money.