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This year, cryptocurrency has been all over the news, usually tagged with headlines revolving Memestocks and NFT's of monkeys, but this week, Crypto will be involved with some quite historical.
If you read the headline or have seen the scroll emoji's pop up all over Twitter, you would think you are living in the third movie of National Treasure. A group of individuals are pooling together money to purchase the Constitution.
A quick history lesson, but if you don't already know, Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It comprises of the seven articles that delineates the national frame of government. Penned in 1787, there are only 11 surviving copies of the original 500 printed in 1787 for the Constitutional Convention. The original is on display in the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. The remaining are circulated amongst private collectors, and the extremely rare piece can fetch anywhere between $15 to $20 million.
Many are held by institutions, but for the first time in years, a privately held copy will be on auction. This copy is on offer from the collection of Dorothy Tapper Goldman, whose late husband Howard bought it in 1988 for just $165,000. Talk about a major return on investment.
Now, where does crypto come into play? Well a group called "ConstitutionDAO" has blown up on social media, crowdfunding and spreading awareness with the hopes of putting the document back into the hands of the people. One of the organizers made a statement saying " the goal is to purchase the Constitution of the United States in a way that utilizes the capabilities of the technology we all believe in.”
If the ConstitutionDAO wins this auction, the plan to team up with a prominent museum or historical society to exhibit the document in a free, public setting. Somewhere like the Smithsonian or the NY Public Library, but it will come down to a vote by the DAO if they can secure the winning bid. In the past week, their pot has grown, now eclipsing over $40 million.
The term DAO refers to the whole premise behind crypto. It stands for “decentralized autonomous organization” and can be described as an open-source blockchain protocol governed by a set of rules, created by its elected members, that automatically execute certain actions without the need for intermediaries (Per Coin Market Cap).
This isn't the first time that DAO's have been in the news for balling out on expensive collectibles. Earlier this year, a group of investors called PleasrDAO spent over $5 million on an NFT that has an affiliation with Edward Snowden. In the pop culture world, last month another group paid over $4 million for a rare Wu-Tang Clan album. If this group can get the constitution, were talking about one of the largest purchases ever by a DAO.
Folks, if you think crypto is just a fad at this point, does this change your mind?