What a Constitutional(let)DAOn
A DAO I’m in crowdfunded $41M in five-ish days to buy the US Constitution, and we didn’t get the outcome we hoped for… We did not win the bid for the copy of the US Constitution. (joke: good thing I right clicked saved!)
Here’s what Julian Weisser (one of the leaders of the DAO) said after the auction:
While this wasn’t the outcome we hoped for, we still made history tonight with ConstitutionDAO. This is the largest crowdfund for a physical object that we are aware of—crypto or fiat. We are so incredibly grateful to have done this together with you all and are still in shock that we even got this far. Sotheby’s has never worked with a DAO community before. We broke records for the most money crowdfunded in less than 72 hours. We have educated an entire cohort of people around the world – from museum curators and art directors to our grandmothers asking us what eth is when they read about us in the news – about the possibilities of web3. And, on the flip side, many of you have learned about what it means to steward an asset like the U.S. constitution across museums and collections, or watched an art auction for the first time. We had 17,437 donors, with a median donation size of $206.26. A significant percentage of these donations came from wallets that were initialized for the first time. You will be able to get a refund of your pro rata amount (effectively minus gas fees) through Juicebox. Please expect more details from us about this tomorrow – our team has not slept in the past week, and we are giving people the night to get some rest before we’re back at it tomorrow AM.
Silver Linings:
Web 3 shows the powerful promise of aligning community incentives. Crowdfunding over $41M in a short period of time, the DAO came together and showed up with an unprecedented level of scale. It will snowball and keep growing… Time to build!
New users for crypto, wallets, DAOs
Here’s what liminal_warmth (another one of the leaders of the DAO) said after the auction:
Lots of questions coming up about why we stopped the bidding where we did. The proper care and maintenance of the Constitution requires a reserve that is needed to insure, store, and transport the document, and we calculated the absolute max we could go to while still meeting these requirements. The opposing bidder passed that max, and we were unable to go any higher while still ensuring that we could properly care for the document. Additionally Sotheby's takes a cut of every auction sale with their fees, and this amount had to be accounted for as well.
My sour grapes:
Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. Good on Sotheby’s, who for the first time denominated a sale in cryptocurrency! Earlier in the auction, two paintings from Banksy went for 3,093 ETH. But, I can’t help the game maker inside of my head from complaining- rigged! From what I gather from the ConstitionDAO Discord, the team had to transfer the funds from the multisig to fiat in order to provide proof of funds for participation. Due to the logistics (assuming Sothby’s requirements), no more donations would be accepted. Imagine if in real time during the auction, ConsitutionDAO members could have donated more money! [Wouldn’t this be the ultimate game live-op event?] [Also need to think more about game guild price elasticity.] Why couldn’t we the $PEOPLE have had a button to click to increase our bid?
I love competitive bidding situations. I was following the action on Youtube live stream, and I couldn't tell who was our bidder and who was the competition. I didn’t know we had not won the bid until well after the auction was over. It’s not as interesting watching a competition if you don't know who to cheer for. Also, I’m not sure that this matters so much in this case, but it seems suboptimal for competitors to know approximately how much money the DAO raised.
Brooke or David?
After catching up from very little sleep and digesting the L, the DAO team is working on how to return the DAO members’ funds. However, with the median donation amount $206.26, for a good number of DAO members, given gas fees, there is no incentive to claim their refund. As an example, if your contribution was $150, gas fees could easily be $150 or more, leaving with you paying more than what you will claim.
It hurts that our DAO didn’t accomplish what it set out to do. I think it is clear that I am a bit bummed. But we are early, and this is just a bump in the road. There is something here. It is different, and it is big. It's time to build!
I continue to be excited by this project and hope it can evolve into something bigger and better. This experiment exposed people to the power and idea of cypto, DAOs and governance. GM