[HN Gopher] ConstitutionDAO
___________________________________________________________________
ConstitutionDAO
Author : tosh
Score : 82 points
Date : 2021-11-17 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.constitutiondao.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.constitutiondao.com)
| meken wrote:
| As of yesterday, they were only at $5M. To see it jump to $25M
| today is staggering, and insanely impressive, from a fundraising
| perspective.
| holonomically wrote:
| That's because the main thought leaders in the crypto community
| have been pumping marketing material on Twitter, Reddit, and
| Discord.
| keymone wrote:
| only a tiny fraction of those $ gains can be realized.
| washedup wrote:
| Funds from the winning bid are going directly to charity:
| https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/the-constitutio...
|
| Very interesting. If Sotheby's accepts the DAO's bid, it will
| potentially bring much more money to charity than any individual
| bidder.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| I don't understand. Are you just "John Madden"ing that if the
| DAO wins the auction then they will be the ones that bid the
| most?
| washedup wrote:
| The highest bidder wins the auction, according to Sotheby's
| rules. The DAO has already has more than the estimated
| bidding range and has a good chance of beating all other
| bids. We will find out tomorrow.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'm confused, if an individual bidder bids more than the DAO,
| wouldn't that bring more to charity than the DAO?
|
| Perhaps the argument is that the DAO is raising hype and
| therefore raising the price for the winning bid and the hype
| itself will increase the total going to charity, I just don't
| see how the DAO would necessarily be giving more to charity
| than an individual if the individual had a higher bid.
| outside1234 wrote:
| More Distributed Woo Hoo:
| https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/decentralized-woo.html
| casi18 wrote:
| show me how this would have happened without crypto. in less
| than a week going from being a joke in a group chat to a
| registered organisation with $25m funding and a clear mission
| statement to take something from private ownership into public
| display.
|
| people can keep dismissing how strong a coordination and
| communication tool crypto, is or we can start taking it
| seriously.
| ains wrote:
| https://www.gofundme.com/
| [deleted]
| int_19h wrote:
| I don't see how any feature specific to crypto contributed
| here? The only coordination required is to get the requisite
| number of people to contribute - and that's a social problem,
| not a technical one.
| keymone wrote:
| there's this saying, something about fools, money and parting.
| maybenotafart wrote:
| I dont get this. Is the constitution an NFT?!?!?!
|
| owning the constitution does not need to be a financial
| transaction, this seems like a scam. we need less money in
| politics, not more.
| cdot2 wrote:
| Read the whole thing
| NickNaraghi wrote:
| wagmi :)
| m8s wrote:
| So what happens if they lose the auction?
| holonomically wrote:
| The money is returned back to the donors (modulo gas fees which
| is currently at $100-$200 range [1]).
|
| 1: https://crypto.com/defi/dashboard/gas-fees
| papa-whisky wrote:
| Ignoring the questionable end-goal here, the 'crypto' aspect of
| this is apparently completely orthogonal to the fund-raising
| effort[1]. What's the point?
|
| [1]https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/11/16/constitution..
| .
| casi18 wrote:
| from his blog:
|
| >No, the crypto bit absolutely doesn't do anything useful
|
| None of this would have happened without 'the crypto bit'.
|
| People are just annoyed that crypto is happening and theyve
| been betting against it. they were so focused on the 'currency'
| aspect they missed that groups of people can coordinate, they
| missed that a reddit group can become a political force, they
| missed that people are buying land together, the missed that
| coordination is the killer app.
|
| HN and the cynics have been telling us for years that none of
| this would work, and when we get examples of it working we hear
| "you could do this without x". yes, in theory you could have a
| mysql database and a company registered in deleware, and stripe
| processing payments, and also companies in other countries to
| handle international payments, and blah blah.....
|
| this is faster, easier, and more fun.
| keymone wrote:
| i'm far from hn cynic regarding crypto, but wholy shit, some
| of crypto projects/ICOs/NFTs are so dumb you have to have
| literally no brain cells to buy into them. including the one
| this post is about.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > None of this would have happened without 'the crypto bit'.
|
| In the sense that it wouldn't have happened without a bunch
| of people suddenly finding themselves with so much wealth
| that spending it on a lark is fine and a nihilistic meme
| culture where throwing money at jokes is a growing global
| activity, sure.
|
| Wouldn't it be nicer if millions were instead spent on
| fighting poverty?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > HN and the cynics have been telling us for years that none
| of this would work, and when we get examples of it working we
| hear "you could do this without x". yes, in theory you could
| have a mysql database and a company registered in deleware,
| and stripe processing payments, and also companies in other
| countries to handle international payments, and blah
| blah.....
|
| Or just use GoFundMe?
|
| I agree that none of this would have happened without the
| crypto bit, but only for the reason that its a rushed and
| poorly thought out idea that crypto nerds are latching onto
| as proof that crypto finally has a high profile use beyond
| speculation.
|
| In reality this solves effectively nothing that centralized
| systems don't while adding the risk of there being no legal
| recourse if the team decides not to do what the DAO says.
| tchock23 wrote:
| When buying naming rights to a sports stadium only lasts a few
| hours in the news cycle you have to get creative to keep the
| crypto hype train running...
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| > the greatest historical tool for human governance: the U.S.
| Constitution.
|
| shitcoiners are evolving, they now have a sense of humour too
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I'm very pro-crypto, and also very pro exploring DAOs as an
| organizing structure.
|
| But this one feels so rushed that I won't be surprised if
| scandals and controversies follow. A lot has to be done properly
| here, and there's a lot of places things can go wrong.
|
| If the aftermath has problems that are too spectacular, it could
| cause trouble for more carefully planned efforts.
| cdot2 wrote:
| I would be surprised if scandals and controversies didnt follow
| anonporridge wrote:
| Insanely heretical idea.
|
| Win the bid, then publicly burn this copy of the Constitution, as
| an act of sacrifice to imbue it's original rarity into a digital
| representation (some kind of NFT) that an unbounded number of
| people can own shares of, thereby transmitting the memetic
| essence of the object into the hyperverse to be preserved and
| treasured for trillions of years, long after all physical copies
| have disintegrated away.
|
| Despite being seen as an unconscionable and horrific act of
| destruction by the citizens of meatspace, it could in reality end
| up being the most powerful act of preservation we could ever do.
| ericjang wrote:
| Interesting idea. But doesn't this rely on public acceptance of
| the "imbuing of the original object's essence into NFT?"
|
| How do you encourage people to associate the act of destruction
| with an act of value transfer?
|
| As a counterexample, an art vandal destroying a piece of art
| does not inherit the value of the art, even though the vandal
| and art interact in a culturally significant way such that the
| art ceases to exist after the interaction.
| anonporridge wrote:
| First, I think there's a fundamental difference between a
| vandal destroying something they don't own, and the owner
| intentionally choosing to destroy it as an act of sacrifice.
|
| Having said that, there actually _is_ some power in the self
| sacrifice of engaging in a destructive act giving a person 's
| message more power and attention (see Unabomber Manifesto as
| a prime example).
|
| Second, at least a subculture of people already do accept
| destruction of real world things as an act that imbues the a
| digital entity with the real world scarcity. It's called
| proof of work, and bitcoin is constantly 'sacrificing' real
| world energy which imbues the token with value in many
| people's minds. Enough so make it a trillion dollar asset
| class.
| holonomically wrote:
| What you described seems much more like cult insanity than
| anything else.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Someone did this with a Banksy print a while back, bought it,
| burned it, sold it as an NFT. And the NFT sold for several
| times the value that the print would have. That was back in
| the NFT frenzy days of early-this-year though.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/17/burnt-
| banksys-...
|
| The reaction to burning the constitution would be
| overwhelmingly negative. Maybe like KLF's burning a million
| quid it would ultimately shake out as a powerful statement,
| but I sort of doubt it.
| ericjang wrote:
| The fact that the NFT sold for more than the original print
| after the act suggests to me that the "sacrifice-value-
| transfer" is not an exact 1:1 process, since the resulting
| NFT had a different value. Yes, the owner is probably
| delighted that the NFT is worth more, but then I'd argue
| that "uploading a physical object's value to the digital
| realm" is no longer the right way to think about this.
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| I think this is what kids these days would call "cursed"
| anonporridge wrote:
| blursed
| KarlKemp wrote:
| It's so original you're the third person _in this threat_ to
| propose it. Congratulations! So smart!
|
| Unfortunately, that sort of self-aggrandizing pseudo-clever
| cynicism is what's driving this whole fad. There were times
| when a generation thought free love and rock & roll were the
| answer. Their children knew weed wasn't the answer, but it
| tuned out those voices asking questions. Now, their children
| believe they'll strike it rich on the PGA Tour of buzzword-
| bingo, and while they wait for what they obviously deserve to
| materialize, they'll get started on the tacky simulations of
| what they believe the lifestyle of rich people to be a.k.a.
| Instagram. And when that doesn't work, they get frustrated, do
| the closest their fragile will allow them to get to therapy
| (Proud Boys telling each other they don't need women) and reach
| their final form once they've made up their mind if it's jews,
| liberals, women, or "the elite" that's screwed them out of the
| good life.
| mejari wrote:
| This seems like a ridiculous idea borne of the fetishization of
| crypto/blockchains/nft/whatever nonsense.
|
| There is fundamentally no act of preservation in destroying a
| physical object, you have to twist all logic and reality to
| think so.
| anonporridge wrote:
| Except that it's not destroyed.
|
| It's ascended to a higher plane of existence, above the
| constraints of meatspace.
| mejari wrote:
| That's not a real thing.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I can just imagine the weeping historians and archivists of
| the future learning that this happened. Digitized artifacts
| are not the same artifacts, even when photographed at
| incredible resolution. We keep finding more ways of
| understanding objects that rely on more than just their
| text or visual perception.
| mNovak wrote:
| Someone already did this (create NFT of the permanent
| destruction of the original) with a Banksy original, so the
| art/shock value is spent.
|
| >> the most powerful act of preservation
|
| As if we don't already have scans / text of the constitution
| archived.
| emerged wrote:
| The real crypto was the friends me made along the way.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| So let me get this straight. There is an auction for a priceless
| (well, very expensive) item.
|
| A group is trying to raise funds to buy this item, but is not
| guaranteed to win the auction anyways. Participating in an
| auction while having a publicly known funding cap feels like a
| poor position to be in.
|
| Further, let's suppose the group wins the auction, and is now the
| proud owner of a copy of the Constitution. This entire end goal
| of this project seems dependent on finding a partner that is
| willing to cover all the costs associated with storage, display,
| security, etc of this high value item.
|
| This feels like a whole lot of "ifs" for a project trying to
| collection $20M.
| parhamn wrote:
| My favorite part is:
|
| > We intend to put The Constitution in the hands of The People.
|
| Like the US Archives aren't owned by the government of the
| people. Instead this will be owned by a very few ETH holders
| willing to participate.
|
| But this might be one of the biggest fundraisers I've seen and
| it probably wouldn't have happened without the crypto
| ecosystem. For that, I am very excited.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Like the US Archives aren't owned by the government of the
| people. Instead this will be owned by a very few ETH holders
| willing to participate.
|
| The ConstitutionDAO changed their website to remove
| references to distributed ownership. They went on to clarify
| that owners of the token won't have fractional ownership of
| the copy of the constitution.
|
| The also added clarification on the website about ownership
| questions:
|
| > No. You are receiving a governance token, not
| fractionalized ownership. Governance includes the ability to
| advise on (for illustrative purposes) where the Constitution
| should be displayed, how it should be exhibited, and the
| mission and values of ConstitutionDAO. ConstitutionDAO is
| taking donations and donors are receiving governance tokens
| with no expectation of profit.
|
| So someone will technically own it, but it won't be the
| people who bought these tokens. In theory the token holders
| can vote on things, but they go out of their way to clarify
| that the votes are advisory in nature.
|
| Anyone who buys into this is basically making a donation to
| this group. The crypto and DAO stuff is just window dressing.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| This is rather unfortunate. I understand they have good
| intentions of keeping an important document out of private
| collector hands but this would have been a stellar time to
| issue governance tokens and expose the wider world to the
| potential offered by DAOs.
| lottin wrote:
| And what would that potential be? Just curious, I don't
| see any potential.
| javert wrote:
| It cannot be taken for granted that they have good
| intentions.
|
| In the crypto/NFT/DAO space, be suspicious until proven
| otherwise.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > It cannot be taken for granted that they have good
| intentions.
|
| This is where I pull back and kinda laugh with irony at
| the effort. Much of this process (most likely because of
| the hurried pace) seems to be "just trust us" but wasn't
| the whole point of the Constitution to build a system of
| checks and balances so we didn't have to just trust one
| group of people?
| astoor wrote:
| > _" they have good intentions of keeping an important
| document out of private collector hands"_
|
| Well, out of _other_ private collector hands, into their
| own private collector hands. As other commenters have
| pointed out, the members of the public who donate to this
| don 't have any form of ownership.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| They could have formed a 501c3 non profit, accepted tax
| deductible fiat donations, established a governance
| model, and arranged ongoing storage and viewing of the
| document. But of course, no blockchain, so womp womp.
|
| Private shared ownership could've been membership
| interest in an LLC managed by Carta or similar. LLCs have
| no membership limit unless taxed as an S corp (to my
| knowledge).
| wallacoloo wrote:
| > You are receiving a governance token, not
| fractionalized ownership. Governance includes the ability
| to advise on (for illustrative purposes) where the
| Constitution should be displayed, how it should be
| exhibited, and the mission and values of ConstitutionDAO.
|
| uh, that's what they're doing. They ARE issuing
| governance tokens.
| viro wrote:
| Oh that is top tier silly
| wtvanhest wrote:
| I funded a small amount of it.
|
| DAOs (distributed Autonomous Organizations) could be better
| thought of in a corporate governance framework.
|
| A) Least distributed corporate governance: Sole
| proprietorship who owns 100% of their business
|
| Every other organization sits between least and most
| distributed
|
| B) Most distributed corporate governance: Full democracy
| state controlled
|
| DAOs are special because the voting mechanism lets people
| vote across boarders/jurisdictions etc from their
| computer... but it also relies on the creators giving the
| right level of control to the DAO voting. If they gave
| voters 100% control, someone could do a 51% attack and have
| it destroyed, or something else. But, if they don't give
| enough control it is effectively a rug pull.
|
| ConstitutionDAO is an amazing initiative because it puts so
| many assumptions up for a test, and crosses crypto world to
| mainstream. Its revolutionary.
|
| The 'power' struggle is real... and fully on display
| meheleventyone wrote:
| If there is an undemocratic layer exercising overall
| control then the net result is authoritarian. It would be
| neither distributed nor autonomous. It's precisely why
| democratic governance generally tries to balance power
| between elements that can exercise checks on one another
| and why eroding those checks is so worrying.
|
| Like if you're trying to buy the constitution in a
| democratic fashion you'd think you'd at least try to
| understand what it means.
| javert wrote:
| It's not amazing. Like any company (a DAO is just a
| company), it could be run well, by good people, or run
| badly, by bad people. Whichever ways it turns out will
| not prove anything about DAOs.
| wtvanhest wrote:
| A DAO is more like a specific corporate governance
| mechanism than a company. For example, ConstitutionDAO
| will be a non-profit, with a non-profit board etc. I
| presume they will put things up for vote using the DAO.
|
| If it is executed flawlessly it will prove DAOs as a
| viable corporate governance mechanism. If it fails or
| struggles, there will be learnings.
| spir wrote:
| I think you're right that the lack of fractional ownership
| undermines what should be the primary benefit of the crypto
| + DAO model.
|
| However, I think they aren't doing the fractional ownership
| to avoid running afoul of securities laws-- ie. this is a
| coincidental drawback of this instance of a DAO under
| today's US laws, and less so a fundamental issue with the
| DAO model.
| casi18 wrote:
| it has previously been in a private collection, and without
| constitutiondao would end up in another private collection.
|
| the intention of the dao is clear, display it in a public
| museum with free entry.
|
| and yes, from a joke last friday to likely suceeding in less
| than a week! exciting. the velocity of daos is remarkable,
| and i think it is a just a small hint of what is to come in
| the future. and it is coming quick.
|
| (meanwhile i expect hn to continue talking about tulips or
| something :)
| holonomically wrote:
| Have there been any DAOs designed for long term impact that
| have been successful at their intended task? Is there a DAO
| for nuclear fusion and fission projects or anything else
| that has real world relevance?
| kreeben wrote:
| I'd like a WebSearchDAO please, that would only turn evil
| if everybody wanted it to.
| holonomically wrote:
| Cool idea but this makes too much sense for anyone in the
| crypto community to take it seriously. They mostly care
| about what gets the most likes and upvotes on Twitter and
| Reddit.
| Animats wrote:
| The site has a total deposited and a "goal" number. When the
| total deposited passed $25 million, the goal jumped from $25
| million to $30 million. When does it stop?
| sinak wrote:
| They're fundraising for a Sotheby's auction, so I think they
| basically want to raise as much as they can to be able to win
| the auction. Apparently they were told that it would likely
| sell for ~$40m, with bidding starting at $20m.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| The low estimate is $15 million, so bidding will start
| below there. It may quickly surpass it, or it may not.
|
| I got the impression the original dao goal wasn't
| accounting for the fees, which are added on top of the
| winning bid.
|
| https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/the-
| constitutio...
| peter422 wrote:
| The auction will not sell for any less than the maximum
| amount the DAO has raised.
|
| If the DAO are heavily incentivized to bid, and you know
| what their max value is, somebody will bid them up.
| Sotheby's is too smart not to make sure that happens.
|
| It is generally a moronic idea to raise funds for an
| auction like this. You will never get a good deal and
| your competition knows exactly what your limit is.
| tyre wrote:
| It's going to be a disaster. I hope Sotheby's doesn't let them
| bid.
|
| Either they do whatever the random people who hold tokens tell
| them to do--including, if you read their Discord, destroy it--
| or you don't. In the latter case, everyone gets all upset that
| governance tokens are not real things and blockchain is, once
| again, not in fact "code is law".
| holonomically wrote:
| Main issue with the crypto community is they throw around
| words like "trust-less" without truly understanding what they
| mean so it's very hard to take them seriously. It is
| impossible to have markets and governments without trust. At
| some point digital transactions must be reified as real world
| actions and that means the people carrying out the actions
| must be trusted to do what is expected of them. There is no
| system that doesn't assume trust somewhere, the trusted base
| can be made smaller but it can never be entirely removed.
| angusturner wrote:
| This is such a good point. This is my first thought
| whenever I see a new "blockchain for x", where x involves
| some real-world product or activity.
|
| Suddenly the promise of "trust-less" makes no sense, and we
| are just left with poor performance and immutability of
| human errors.
| okwubodu wrote:
| Trustless in the context of crypto means you don't have to
| put your trust (if you don't want to) a 3rd party because
| they don't have the option to not do the right thing. It
| gives you the ability to know exactly what you will lose
| and what you will gain when you press confirm on a
| transaction. It doesn't matter whether or not you trust the
| other person because they simply don't have the ability to
| do anything other than the code-that you both can verify-
| says.
|
| (This isn't to say that there are no bad actors, but that a
| wolf in sheep's clothing would be forced to act like the
| sheep it presented itself as.)
| holonomically wrote:
| I don't think you understand what I'm saying. The real
| world requires trust. It doesn't matter what the code
| says. If I buy something then I have to trust that it
| will be delivered in some way by passing through trusted
| 3rd parties like FedEx. There is no way around trust. As
| soon as the digital makes contact with reality all
| mathematical guarantees of being "trust-less" are no
| longer relevant.
| lottin wrote:
| This is not how a blockchain works though. Transactions
| are appended to the blockchain by a 3rd party that has
| discretionary power, not by some computer code.
| okwubodu wrote:
| > 3rd party that has discretionary power, not by some
| computer code.
|
| I genuinely have no idea what you mean by this. Unless
| you manage a 51% attack there's no discretion to be had.
| You can for sure push nonsense to the chain, but it would
| either be ignored or punished [1][2] in some cases.
|
| Blockchains are just distributed computing, it's all
| computer code. The first two sections here
| (https://paulx.dev/blog/2021/01/14/programming-on-solana-
| an-i...) explain it much better than I can.
|
| [1]https://support.polkadot.network/support/solutions/art
| icles/... [2]https://docs.solana.com/proposals/slashing
| lozaning wrote:
| Sothebys would appear to be all about this
| https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/sealed-
| cryptopu...
|
| They don't care as long as they can take their buyers
| premium.
| Imnimo wrote:
| The webpage says your token just lets you "advise" on what to
| do with it, which feels completely meaningless. The FAQ says:
|
| >We recognize that much more detail is required here! Due to
| the unusual and extremely short timeline of needing to rally
| around obtaining the Constitution during the auction window,
| we have not been able to focus on giving the technical
| aspects of DAO governance mechanics the careful consideration
| and community deliberation this topic requires. The Delegates
| do not want to simply declare how this will work, and we will
| be working with the DAO community post-auction to make these
| decisions.
|
| So definitely completely meaningless.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _This feels like a whole lot of "ifs" for a project trying to
| collection $20M._
|
| Also I feel like one of the only thirteen surviving copies of
| the US Constitution will sell for a _lot_ more than $20M.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| >Additionally, the community has expressed strong preferences
| for institutions that are free to the public and willing to
| cover the costs associated with housing the document.
|
| Had to laugh at this. I'd have a strong preference for others
| subsidizing my questionable decisions too.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I think it's more than that; "preference" aside, if you can't
| find a partner willing to cover the costs, how will the
| upkeep costs be paid for? I see 3 options:
|
| 1. They are required to raise additional funding for
| maintenance. I'm not sure I'd bet on them having the same
| interest in this project in a couple of months
|
| 2. The DAO neglects the item, and it gets irrecoverably
| damaged/destroyed. The ConstituationDAO has now effectively
| destroyed a copy of the constitution
|
| 3. They find themselves in the position of having to firesale
| the item in a couple of months when they're unable to cover
| the associated costs.
|
| I'll also add that it would be _possible_ for the DAO to have
| enough funding after purchasing the item to generate
| income/returns that can cover the associated costs. Given
| that their funding is public, and will be participating in an
| auction, I'm not sure I would bet on having a whole of of
| funds left over.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think it's very unlikely they won't be able to find some
| organisation to host the document.
|
| For an organisation like a museum, who already have secure
| climate controlled storage, and are already open to the
| public, it would cost next to nothing extra to keep it.
|
| Yet merely having a copy of the constitution will get many
| more people through the doors to buy postcards in the shop
| and coffee in the cafe. That will far outweigh the added
| costs.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing that there is likely an organization
| out there.
|
| You lose a lot of negotiating power though when everyone
| knows that you are going to have a very short deadline,
| and don't really have an alternative.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Nothing stops you loaning it to a museum for a period,
| eg. 6 months, giving you time to choose either another
| place to loan it to or a permanent home.
|
| It's common for artifacts to go on 'tours' like this, so
| as many people as possible get a chance to view them.
| solveit wrote:
| Eh, many museums will want this, so the DAO only has no
| alternative if the museums all collude, which I don't see
| them doing.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Several museums would be very happy to host the constitution
| and just pay for the "storage" fees.
| root_axis wrote:
| This is a great example of the power of crypto. Millions of
| dollars raised in record time, meanwhile the marks have been
| fooled into thinking their tokens are actually meaningful while
| the masterminds of the scam have legal control of the document in
| question and are free to completely ignore any of the "voting"
| that goes on since blockchains do not exist in meatspace and mean
| literally nothing with respect to legal ownership of the
| document. This kind of thing simply wouldn't be possible without
| the web3 revolution, this is really exciting stuff!
| rvz wrote:
| They are probably going to win the auction + gas fees included,
| but they would probably need more money to protect it than just
| simply 'owning it'.
|
| > The eventual home must have the expertise to properly house,
| store, and maintain the artifact. Additionally, the community has
| expressed strong preferences for institutions that are free to
| the public and willing to cover the costs associated with housing
| the document.
|
| The problem with DAOs is 'trust' which they are vulnerable to
| this trust being abused. Hence, I'm afraid that such 'DAOs' don't
| have a good history of being trustworthy, especially when there
| is little to no regulations involved, but we'll see.
|
| Maybe to launder the $30M, would be to mint the Constitution as
| an NFT perhaps?
| V__ wrote:
| > Am I receiving ownership of the Constitution in exchange for my
| donation? > No. You are receiving a governance token, not
| fractionalized ownership. Governance includes the ability to
| advise on (for illustrative purposes) where the Constitution
| should be displayed (...)
|
| So some anonymous group is raising money to buy the constitution
| and in exchange you get voting rights? Which they totally pinky-
| promise will adhere to. Oh, and it's crypto, so it's a token.
|
| This sounds like Victor Lustig selling the eiffel tower but with
| technology.
| casi18 wrote:
| Not anonymous, team is very public. because of US law this is
| the practical way of actually doing it, the alternative seems
| to be not doing it and thatd be boring. theres been long
| discussions for days in the discord, if people have suggestions
| of a better way to do this come join in.
|
| people are very open to how else could we do this and how it
| can be improved and secured.
|
| remember this was just a joke in a group chat last week, that
| speed of development will have issues, but community and
| reputation matter, and we can lean on that as we solve the
| legal structure.
| V__ wrote:
| The team may be in the public, but neither on Twitter nor on
| their website is any imprint or personal information.
|
| The proper way to do it, would be to set up a non-profit
| organization where each funding/paying member gets voting
| rights (no crypto needed).
|
| It's funny as a joke and maybe the intention is good, but in
| the end this could just as well be a new crypto scam and
| funding this project is the same as gambling at a casino.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| There are any number of other, more rational ways of doing
| this. The only "problem" is that they don't involve crypto
| because, in this case, crypto brings absolutely nothing to
| the table that I can discern except an increased risk of
| getting scammed. The most obvious would be to sell shares in
| a corporation or LLC. That entity could then use the money
| raised to buy the constitution. That way the funders would
| actually have something of recognized legal value (fractional
| ownership in an entity that owns a copy of the U.S.
| Constitution) instead of a largely worthless "governance
| token."
|
| Under the current approach, it seems like people are being
| asked to contribute money so that _someone else_ can buy a
| copy of the U.S. Constitution, with the funders having--at
| best--merely a say in how /where it is displayed. I can't
| imagine why anyone would want to do this, unless they are
| misunderstanding what they are getting in return for their
| ETH.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Why give governance tokens? The second blurb there states they
| wish to hand it over to some place that can house it open to the
| public free of charge, but then later state the purpose of giving
| you a governance token in exchange for contributing to the
| auction bid pool is you get a say in what will be done with it.
| It sounds like they've already decided what to do with it. Give
| it to a public national museum. Reserving the right to take it
| back and do something else instead doesn't make much sense. I'd
| rather fund a bid that promises to donate it and relinquish any
| further rights than get some tradable ownership share I can sell
| to someone else who decides they want to burn it ten years from
| now.
| miguelmota wrote:
| This is an interesting experiment that I'm excited about. The
| fact that a financial flash mob is possible is incredible.
| Anybody from anywhere can participate and have voting power by
| joining the DAO. Regardless of the outcome, it's good to see the
| convergence of DAOs into meatspace.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Well, I think they've been saying that the tokens guarantee
| voting power to _advise_ the LLC which actually owns the
| physical document, not to actually own the document, because,
| as someone else mentioned, that may run afoul of US securities
| laws.
|
| I say all this being excited about iterating on the future of
| governance, I also worry that such quick financial flash mobs
| could really screw people really fast.
| keymone wrote:
| except of course there is literally zero voting power from
| participating in this project because the "power" bit is always
| assigned by a source of authority and nothing about this
| project tells you how can this power be realized or enforced.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| "from a joke last friday to this" ..... all of this stuff is
| treated like a game. Everything is not a game. The attitude
| behind all of these stunts and NFTs and everything is fucking
| ridiculous and points to so much wrong behind the scenes it's
| unnerving
| holonomically wrote:
| I don't think these people realize the futility of their effort.
| The US Constitution isn't something to be bought and sold.
| Assigning a dollar value to it is the literal anti-thesis of
| everything that is outlined in the document itself.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| "For the first time in thirty-three years, one of thirteen
| surviving copies of the Official Edition from the
| Constitutional Convention will be publicly auctioned by
| Sotheby's. It is one of the two copies that are still owned by
| private collectors. The proceeds from the auction will be given
| to a charity that has been established by the current owner.
|
| ConstitutionDAO is a DAO that is pooling together money to win
| this auction. We intend to put The Constitution in the hands of
| The People. "
|
| It's a copy of the original.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > It's a copy of the original.
|
| In the same way a Gutenberg Bible is "a copy of the original"
| I suppose...
| holonomically wrote:
| I understand what they're doing. The Constitution already
| belongs to the people, no copies need to be bought or sold
| for this to be the case. That's what I mean by futility of
| their effort. Their project betrays a profound
| misunderstanding of the US Constitution.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Yeah in terms of that, it seems like it's hyperbolic
| metaphor that the crypto community loves to throw around.
| [deleted]
| casi18 wrote:
| its fun. and it demos how these tools can be used for rapid
| mass coordination.
| holonomically wrote:
| It doesn't demonstrate any of that. This was pumped on
| Twitter, Reddit, and other centralized aggregators which
| defeats the entire argument about decentralized mass
| coordination.
| casi18 wrote:
| fine, i cant be bothered with hn anymore. so you can say ok
| its discord and twitter.
|
| but crypto is fun. people will keep having fun.
|
| we can ignore that and write it off as has been the case
| for the past ten years, or we can recognise 10% of
| americans have coinbase app installed. that this is
| reality. and people can keep saying "we could do this
| without crypto" but it doesnt change the fact we didnt do
| it without crypto, we did it with crypto. and then can
| start to investigate why that is, or bury our heads in the
| sand saying "show me a real use case"
|
| we can start to investigate why thousands of people are
| willing to essentially donate money towards a meme, what
| that sense of community and collective ownership is about,
| and what this means for the future, and how this tech is
| enabling that and how we can channel it -> there already
| talks of BailFundDAO and ReparationsDAO off the back of
| this...
| holonomically wrote:
| I can see why you're exasperate but you can also see why
| sensible people don't think crypto is anything more than
| a toy. So far it has had no positive real world impact.
| Most aspects of crypto are dominated by childish memes
| which drives away sensible people from investing time and
| effort into doing something meaningful with the
| technology. The childish culture will have to change for
| the technology to have any meaningful impact.
| keymone wrote:
| i generally agree, but
|
| > So far it has had no positive real world impact
|
| lots of opposition politicians in repressive regimes are
| currently funded using bitcoin, so be careful with
| generalizations
| holonomically wrote:
| Then I'm looking forward to the positive outcomes and the
| crypto community celebrating their wins instead of
| hawking more pixelated boob NFTs.
| djrogers wrote:
| "Will the core team receive any of the raised funds for
| themselves or get compensated in any way from this?
|
| The core team has not received or pre-minted any tokens.
| Following the purchase of the Constitution, we intend to submit a
| proposal to be voted on by the community. While this is unusual,
| we believe that it establishes a precedence of mutual trust
| between the core team and the backers of the ConstitutionDAO."
|
| So anyone who funds this has to trust that a) You are not a dog,
| b) ConstitutionDAO will use the money to buy the copy of the
| constitution, c) All extra money will be returned, d) The above
| mentioned proposal will be in the interests of the community, and
| e) ConstitutionDOA will abide by the above mentioned vote.
|
| Setting all of that aside, what mechanism exists for a
| "governance token" to actually have any power in this
| relationship at all?
| cge wrote:
| Beyond this, there doesn't appear to be any explanation of how
| this works from a legal and tax perspective.
|
| There's no mention of a legal entity receiving the funds, but
| at the same time, they state these are donations, not
| fractional ownership, so presumably from a legal perspective
| this is actually just giving the funds to the core team, who
| appear to be mostly in the US, but not entirely? And, while I
| had always thought that the _point_ of DAOs was that they were
| _autonomous_ , this appears to be just giving the core
| contributors direct control over the money? Surely, for
| example, the actual bidding is not coded into the contract?
|
| So, considering this is now over $25m, wouldn't there be some
| tax involved if people pay you in this way? Maybe if you argue
| they are gifts (but are they?), and no individual donation is
| over $10k, but I suspect many are?
|
| And at over $25m, Sotheby's is obviously going to have some
| ownership identification requirements. So who will _actually_
| be the legal owner here, and how will they account for this
| revenue?
|
| Apparently, they're _planning_ on setting up a (for-profit?)
| LLC? (https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/11/16/constitut
| ion...)
| meheleventyone wrote:
| It's a physical thing and a DAO (mostly) isn't a recognised
| legal entity so there is always a disconnect here irrespective
| of the crypto side of things. There's an awful lot of trust
| being put into the honesty of the people organising this effort
| with little ability to hold them to account. Which is par for
| the course and why rug-pull is a turn of phrase.
| snewman wrote:
| As usual, Matt Levine has the best take (https://www.bloomberg.co
| m/opinion/articles/2021-11-16/jpmorg...):
|
| > Ben Thompson points out that this is all pretty approximate;
| ConstitutionDAO will not give its token holders fractionalized
| ownership of the Constitution...
|
| > Also, not to be like this, but there is an original copy of the
| Constitution on permanent display at the National Archives; it is
| already "in the hands of the people," in the sense that (1) it is
| owned by the U.S. government and (2) the U.S. government is, when
| you think about it, sort of a decentralized autonomous
| organization made up of the citizens of the U.S.? The citizens
| can kind of tell the government what to do? By voting? When you
| think about it? I don't know. I'm sure that in five years
| ConstitutionDAO token holders will vote to change the Second
| Amendment to say "putting laser implants in your eyes is now
| mandatory" and somehow that will have the force of law.
| root_axis wrote:
| Hmm, "government" as a governance model? This has some serious
| potential.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Isn't it obvious that this is a memeing initiative that ran wild?
| kall wrote:
| I have read approximately 100 times that this is a grand,
| endlessly interesting experiment and whatever happens it will be
| a new era for crypto. OK, sounds kind of cool but what is the
| hypothesis, or the interesting thing, or the thing that will
| change?
|
| Only things I can think of are meta-crypto stuff, like that
| crypto hype can hype better than any other hype, that seems clear
| since Dogecoin. Or maybe how good/fast communities can coordinate
| using current web2 tooling, which is neat, sure. The speed and
| scale do feel interesting, but I don't really know why.
|
| Anyway seems harmless and very fun for everyone involved.
| Imnimo wrote:
| >ConstitutionDAO is seeking an esteemed partner to publicly
| display the Constitution. The eventual home must have the
| expertise to properly house, store, and maintain the artifact.
| Additionally, the community has expressed strong preferences for
| institutions that are free to the public and willing to cover the
| costs associated with housing the document.
|
| Really putting the cart before the horse on this, aren't we?
| cdot2 wrote:
| To be fair I can imagine that a number of museums would jump at
| the chance to be essentially donated an original copy of the
| constitution
| Imnimo wrote:
| If they wanted to "essentially donate" it, they could just
| donate it. And if museums are jumping at the chance, they
| could have arranged it ahead of time.
| rndmind wrote:
| this whole project is organized by a bunch of kids for fun,
| chill out and relax your butt cheeks dude
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I can't speak for other Americans, but as much as I try
| to see this as "organized by a bunch of kids for fun," I
| also feel a strong emotional attachment to the
| Constitution and an original copy of it. So I try to
| balance that "cool experiment" with "wait, what are they
| doing with a sacred document?" I say it genuinely, I feel
| torn by the excitement at the experiment and
| frustrated/angry at what seems to almost be a parody of
| the Constitution itself.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I think I'd be a lot more excited about this if they had an
| innovative governance system underlying the DAO, as a way to talk
| about the future of governance. Considering the Constitution is a
| document about governance structure, it surprises and disappoints
| me that their system of checks and balances seems to be mostly
| missing, with maybe just a phrase of "pro rata" or whoever has
| the most tokens gets the most votes. Seems not much different
| than how most corporation voting works. Just seems like there's
| an opportunity to more deeply discuss what the future of online
| and offline governance will be, as geographic governing bodies
| struggle to deal with digital spaces. But memes seem more cool I
| guess lol.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > We intend to put The Constitution in the hands of The People.
| Additionally, the community has expressed strong preferences for
| institutions that are free to the public and willing to cover the
| costs associated with housing the document.
|
| They should lend it to the US Government, it meets all these
| goals.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| How does ridiculous bullshit like this get 30mm while other
| promising projects fail because people don't want to pay USD
| 0,99? Has the entire world succumbed to simply whoever has the
| better marketing!
| sorethescore wrote:
| Yes
| barney54 wrote:
| So what's the point? There is a copy of the Constitution that is
| owned by the American people. It's on display in the National
| Archives in Washington, DC. So what's the point of this DAO?
| laluser wrote:
| To me, it's more about the idea than the actual action on
| display here. Decentralizing a process than is normally very
| opaque and centralized is what's being attempted and it's a
| cool idea. Whether this is executed well or not, that's a
| different story.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I wonder if one of the main reasons it hasn't been
| decentralized is because it has been illegal to do so--
| selling shares/securities to the general public without
| disclosure of risks and other rules set forth by the SEC.
|
| I remember being in the Bay Area back in 2014-16 and people
| talking about wanting to use Kickstarter and other
| crowdfunding platforms for not just buying products but
| owning the company, but kept getting stuck at the accredited
| investor requirements for private companies.
|
| So, I guess I'm curious about this as a referendum on why we
| have securities laws and accredited investor laws and whether
| those should change or stay, I just don't think it's
| necessarily as brand new of an idea as it seems.
|
| EDIT: The concept I was talking about is called equity
| crowdfunding [0] and the SEC opened it up to more people in
| 2012 [1].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_crowdfunding [1]:
| https://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/tmjobsact-
| crowdfundi...
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