When rare copies of historical documents are auctioned, it is often wealthy businessmen who make the winning bids.
But at an auction scheduled for Thursday, a smorgasbord of crypto fans found on social media may be the ones to walk away with a copy of the first edition of the US Constitution.
Fueled by cryptocurrency memes and inspired by a 2004 Nicolas Cage movie, the group, which calls itself ConstitutionDAO, reported raising more than $ 32 million from thousands of mostly anonymous donors in less than a week of organizing. online.
It is a project that demonstrates the power of Internet crowdsourcing and the spread of cryptocurrencies in the mainstream culture. On Tuesday, the stadium where the Los Angeles Lakers play Announced that Singapore-based Crypto.com had bought the naming rights to what had become known as the Staples Center.
The cryptocurrency jackpot now places ConstitutionDAO in a possibly competitive position to bid on one of the founding documents of American democracy.
โCryptocurrencies will allow the United States constitution to fulfill its original mission! Freedom! "Wrote a person who contributed $ 400 worth of ethereum cryptocurrency to the cause on Wednesday. (The fact that transactions can be seen publicly is a defining characteristic of the cryptocurrency).
Another Twitter user called the effort a "financial flash mob".
The copy of the Constitution, printed in 1787 when the drafters drafted the document, will go up for auction Thursday at Sotheby's. It is one of 13 copies It is believed to be out of 500 copies in print, and it is the last to have been in the hands of an individual collector.
The document was expected to be retrieved as much as $ 20 million a few days ago, but the crypto fund has added a layer of uncertainty. ConstitutionDAO has said $ 40 million would give you a "great chance to win."
The auction is scheduled for 6:30 pm in New York.
The "DAO" in ConstitutionDAO stands for "decentralized autonomous organization," a label for a new generation of Internet-based bottom-up groups using a transparent digital ledger known as a blockchain. Some people refer to this vision of a decentralized Internet as Web 3.0 or Web3.
"What we're trying now is the grand decentralized blockchain experiment," said Graham Novak, an associate at a venture capital firm in Atlanta and one of 30 people listed as top contributors to the group.
Novak, speaking to a group of Twitter users on Wednesday in an audio broadcast, said the group has good intentions, mainly the idea that anyone can have a part of the historical document.
"Who else is going to buy this? A super rich person who just puts it in a collection in their basement?" I ask.
This copy of the Constitution was last up for sale in 1988, when property developer S. Howard Goldman purchased it at auction. He and his wife showed it publicly over the years.
Other wealthy entrepreneurs, from private equity mogul David Rubenstein to early search engine co-founder Magellan, have bought copies of rare documents, such as the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence.
Technically, ConstitutionDAO contributors would not own part of the document. Instead, each would receive a "governance token" that would give them the ability to advise on issues like where the Constitution should be displayed if they win the auction.
If ConstitutionDAO wins the auction, it plans to publicly display the Constitution through an "esteemed partner," ideally an institution that is free to the public and willing to cover associated costs, according to the group. website.
"None of the major contributors wishes to physically alter the Constitution in any way, and is committed to its safety," the group says in frequently asked questions.
The organization has been carried out on applications such as Twitter, the Discord chat platform, Google Docs and other applications, which have been used to recruit other people and request contributions.
Organizers have asked not only for money but also memes to pique interest, in particular any memes related to "National Treasure", the 2004 film in which Nicolas Cage plays a man trying to steal a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
And organizers said if they win, they will vote on their plan to show the Constitution to all taxpayers, a display of democracy designed to echo the document itself.
"We knew we wanted to involve people who were everywhere," said another top contributor, Anisha Sunkerneni, a San Francisco-based investor. "We wanted anyone who wanted to be a part of this to be able to do it."
