The Largest crowdfunding project in crypto history, ConstitutionDAO, says it is still offering refunds to contributors after coming short on its objective of acquiring a copy of the United States constitution.
About 17, 437 people came together on the internet and raised more than $40 million worth of Ether in a week to try to buy the rare, first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction.
The funds were raised through the purchase of $PEOPLE token. However, the copy of the U.S. Constitution sold for $43.2 million at Sotheby’s with Ken Griffin, CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund and financial services company reportedly paying $43.2 million for the 234 year-old document.
Left with no Constitution, the huge amount in ETH raised in its multi-signature wallets, ConstitutionDAO decided to refund the entire amount to its donors. But reportedly many in the DAO’s Discord community balked against the high refund gas fees.
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Consequently, the ConstitutionDAO team provided two choices to its donors:
- Either they could return their PEOPLE tokens for ETH (minus gas fees), or
- They can choose to receive a new governance token, dubbed ‘We The People (WTP),’ without having to pay a gas fee, at the rate of 1 PEOPLE per WTP
The Constitution, which sold on Thursday 18th November 2021, is one of 13 remaining from a printing made for the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a part of the history of the United States and one of only two privately owned copies.
Constitution DAO had hoped to place it in a museum or another public home and said it would return the money it raised if it lost.
The group’s organizers first met a week ago and began soliciting donations on Sunday 14th November 2021, orchestrating a word-of-mouth campaign through Twitter and other social media.
It set a goal of $20 million, the high end of what Sotheby’s had originally estimated the document could fetch.
By Tuesday, it had raised $5 million. A day later, over $40 million. It eventually raised $47 million through sales of PEOEPLE, at which point the auction was complete.
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