The online group, ConstitutionDAO, has failed in its bid to buy the last privately-owned, 1st edition print re-create of the Usa Constitution at a public auction at Sotheby'due south on Thursday.

The "Official Edition of the United states of america Constitution" was instead won by an unknown bidder for $41 million (or $43.2 million after auction fees), meaning the DAO failed in its historic attempt to put it "in the hands of The People."

The news bankrupt in an announcement on the official Discord. "While this was not the issue we hoped for, we however made history tonight," the post read.

This specific copy is one of simply xiii copies of the Official Edition of the Constitution from the Constitutional Convention. It was first purchased from Sotheby's by the late existent estate developer Due south. Howard Goldman in 1988 for $165,000. His widow Dorothy Goldman put it up for auction this year and decided that the gain will go to the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation.

Project participants began to ring together just a calendar week ago as a decentralized autonomous arrangement, or DAO, to puddle funds for the sale. In the hours leading upwards to the sale, ConstitutionDAO had raised over $49 million in Ethereum donations nerveless via Juicebox, a platform for community-owned Ethereum-based projects.

The auction was streamed live.

In substitution for donations, the 17,437 backers were issued governance tokens called PEOPLE. These do not provide fractionalized buying, rather give token owners the ability to vote on proposals around structure, governance and operational direction.

Participants will at present be able to get a refund of their contribution via Juicebox.