Crypto Crowd Funding Fails In Sotheby's Auction Over Rare Copies Of The US Constitution

Rare copy of US Constitution sold at Sotheby's Auction (photo; archives.gov)

JAKARTA – An offer funded by cryptocurrency enthusiasts to buy rare copies of the US constitution fell through on Thursday, November 18. The document was instead sold to another buyer for 43.2 million US dollars (Rp 616 billion). This is the highest auction price on record for a printed ancient text, according to auction house Sotheby's.

The identity of the winning bidder was not clearly disclosed. The same goes for why the cryptocurrency group, called “ConstitutionDAO” lost at that price, as their crowd-funding page has raised over 47 million US dollars (Rp 670 billion).

"Community: We didn't win the bid," ConstitutionDAO said on Twitter, promising its 17,437 contributors a refund minus transaction fees. Sotheby's says it is the largest crowd-funding initiative ever.

An extremely rare official copy of the first edition of the US Constitution, adopted by the founding fathers of the United States in Philadelphia in 1787, has been estimated by Sotheby's to be worth 15 million to 20 million US dollars.

The item last sold for $165,000 in 1988, when it was acquired by the late S. Howard Goldman, a New York real estate developer and collector of American signatures, documents, and manuscripts.

"The winning bid was 41 million and the final price was $43.2 million including overhead and other costs," a Sotheby's source said.

According to Sotheby's, proceeds from the sale will be donated to a charity on behalf of the wife of the late Howard Goldman, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, to advance public understanding of democracy.

The ConstitutionDAO website says that the contributors will become members of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO, but that they themselves have no interest in the document.

A DAO is a kind of online community that uses blockchain technology that allows members to suggest and vote on decisions about how to run it.

More than 47 million, or 11,600 of the cryptocurrency ether, have been paid into the project, according to crowdfunding website Juicebox.

"While we @ConstitutionDAO lost the battle, the last seven days have shown what a group of internet friends, memes and visions can achieve - competing fiercely in the most elite art house in the country," Alice Ma, one of the people behind the project that, said on Twitter..