Cryptocurrency enthusiasts raised a crowdfunded bid to get their hands on a rare copy of the U.S. constitution but failed to raise enough. According to Sotheby, the auction house, the document was sold for $43.2 million to another buyer, the highest price for a printed text.
The winning bidder was not known, and it was unclear as to why the cryptocurrency group, “ConsitutionDAO,” lost at that price since their crowdfunding had collected more than $47 million.
ConstitutionDAO addressed the community in a tweet about the bid and promised the 17,437 contributors a refund. It was the largest crowdfunding initiative so far, said Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s estimated the rarest official first-edition printed copy of the U.S. Constitution that was adopted by the founding fathers of America in Philadelphia in 1787 to be $15 million to $20 million.
In 1988, the copy was sold for $165,000 and acquired by a New York real estate developer, the late S: Howard Goldman, who was also a collector of American autographs, documents, and manuscripts.
$41 million was the winning bid with the final price of $43.2 million, inclusive of overheads and other costs, said Sotheby’s. The proceeds will go to a charitable foundation in his wife’s name, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, to enlighten the people more about democracy.
The crowdfunding website, ConstitutionDAO, stated that contributors would become a member of the DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) but would not have a stake in the document.
DAO is a sort of online community that allows members to suggest and vote on decisions about how it is run using blockchain technology.
Around $47 million or 11,600 of ether, a cryptocurrency, was spent on the project, according to Juicebox, a crowdfunding website.