ConstitutionDAO, a new decentralized autonomous organization, is raising funds to bid for a rare copy of the US Constitution. This official and rare copy of the US Constitution will be auctioned off on November 18 by Sotheby’s.
A small team that seems to be supported by many, has raised over USD 2.8 million that is about 602 ETH worth at the time of writing. Their main goal is to pool enough Ethereum (Approximately 4,230 ETH worth USD 20 Million) to bid on the US Constitution.
Graham Novak wrote, “In the ethos and spirit of Web3, we intend to purchase The Constitution and find a home for it among the world’s finest artifacts to be preserved and enjoyed by all. We the people plan to preserve the document for the people. The ownership, of course, will reside within the DAO. We’ll fractionalize, NFT-ify [non-fungible token-ify], and mem-ify in the way that we do.” (Graham Novak is one of ConstitutionDAO’s project engineers).
This rare artifact is valued between $15 million to $20 Million. The document is one of the surviving copies of the 13 first-edition copies printed in 1787. It was first purchased by S. Howard Goldman, passionate about holding cultural artifacts, in 1988 for $165,000.
The copy has been in the hands of the Goldman family, one of the richest families in the US with a net worth of $12 billion, for 33 years. For the first time in three decades, Howard’s wife, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, has publicly put it on auction.
According to Sotheby’s, “Full proceeds from the sale of the collection will benefit The Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation, which is dedicated to furthering the understanding of our democracy and how the acts of all citizens can make a difference.”
Although Sotheby’s have auctioned some of their pieces with cryptocurrencies, one of their representatives has said that they won’t accept cryptocurrencies for the Constitution. Meaning that ConstitutionDAO must convert the funded Ethereum to US dollars.
ConstitutionDAO is in talks with Brett Harrison, President of FTX US, to facilitate the Goldman Constitution purchase by converting ConstitutionDAO’s Ethereum to US dollars. One of the participants in ConstitutionDAO’s discord group, Julian Weisser, said they haven’t officially decided to use the exchange.
ConstitutionDAO is already looking for a home to preserve the exceptionally rare copy of the artifact. They are looking into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and the New-York Historical Society.
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