Trade PEOPLE with Leverage

ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that was established with the primary objective of purchasing an original copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction in November 2021. The DAO aimed to democratize ownership of this historic document by raising funds through a crowdfunding campaign utilizing the Ethereum blockchain and its native token, PEOPLE. Despite successfully raising over $45 million, the DAO was ultimately outbid by Citadel CEO Ken Griffin.

ConstitutionDAO was a collective initiative without a single founder, emerging from a group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and organized primarily through a Discord chat led by Austin Cain and Graham Novak. The DAO quickly garnered significant attention and participation, attracting contributions from over 17,000 individuals within a short span of time. Key contributors to the initiative included Brian Wagner and Liminal Warmth, who were instrumental in coordinating the crowdfunding efforts and managing the organizational structure.

ConstitutionDAO operated by pooling contributions in the form of Ethereum (ETH) from its members, who in return received PEOPLE tokens. These tokens represented the proportional contribution of each member to the DAO’s fund. The DAO utilized a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain to manage these contributions transparently and securely. Members could redeem their PEOPLE tokens for ETH at a predetermined rate following the DAO’s unsuccessful bid at the auction. The DAO’s structure ensured that all transactions and fund management were conducted transparently, leveraging the inherent trustlessness of blockchain technology  .

ConstitutionDAO demonstrated the power of decentralized crowdfunding and collective action. Through the DAO model, ConstitutionDAO was able to mobilize a substantial amount of capital quickly and transparently, without the need for traditional financial intermediaries. The use of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain ensured that all contributions were securely managed and that the process was transparent to all participants.

The technology underpinning ConstitutionDAO included smart contracts that handled contributions and the issuance of PEOPLE tokens. The DAO also utilized platforms like JuiceBox for fundraising and decentralized communication tools like Discord and Twitter for community engagement. Its technological infrastructure enabled efficient coordination and management of the crowdfunding campaign, highlighting the potential of decentralized systems to handle large-scale financial and organizational activities.

The PEOPLE token is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, used primarily to denote the contributions of members to the DAO. Following the conclusion of the auction, the DAO announced that PEOPLE tokens could be redeemed for ETH at a rate of 1 ETH per 1 million PEOPLE tokens. The redemption mechanism ensured that contributors could reclaim their funds in a transparent manner.

The total supply of PEOPLE tokens was approximately 5.06 billion, all of which were in circulation at the time of the DAO’s dissolution. The tokenomics of PEOPLE did not include traditional features such as staking or governance rights, as the primary function of the token was to facilitate the redistribution of the collected funds back to the contributors.