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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ken Griffin Is Mystery Buyer Who Outbid Crypto Collective For Copy Of US Constitution

Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.

Update (3:15 pm ET): Mystery solved: according to the WSJ, the mystery bidder of the rare, first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction on Thursday  who outbid a crypto collective with a winning $43.2 million bid, is none other than Citadel boss and billionaire, Ken Griffin. He now intends to lend the constitution to a free Arkansas art museum (although he

Chicago hedge-fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin said he won a $43.2 million first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction on Thursday—and now he intends to lend it to a free Arkansas art museum, but not before making some redline adjustments:

Section. 1

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 1.5

Payment For Orderflow shall be deemed a fundamental right

The 53-year old founder of Citadel caused a stir late on Thursday when an unknown buyer outbid a large group of cryptocurrency investors who had crowdfunded more than $40 million earlier in the week in a frenzied attempt to win the document, the last surviving first edition in private hands.

And as life imitates art – and auctions – it is only fitting that after frontrunning their crypto trades, Griffing has also frontrun the outcome of the auction.

* * *

A rare first edition copy of the constitution sold for $43.2 million at auction this week. But the real story is who was outbid for the document – a group called ConsitutionDAO, who pooled together more than $40 million to place a bid. DAO is crypto parlance for decentralized autonomous organization.

ConstitutionDAO is a "decentralized autonomous organization formed to put the Constitution into the hands of the people," its website says. 

They were outbid at the last minute by "an anonymous phone bidder" who won the auction for the historical document, which is only 1 of 13 of its kind, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The document is now "the priciest six pages in auction history, surpassing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’s $30.8 million copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific notebook known as the Codex Leicester," the Journal reported.

While the winner remains anonymous, the runner up was revealed to be a collective of more than 17,000 people who donated for a chance to win the artifact.

Anisha Sunkerneni of San Francisco, who helped organize the bid on behalf of ConstitutionDAO, said: “What we tried to do was make the Constitution more accessible to the public. Although we might have not completely accomplished doing just that, I think we’ve raised enough awareness to illustrate that a DAO is another option.”

The DAO had 17,437 participants with a median donation size of $206.26.

"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," its website said leading up to the auction.

"ConstitutionDAO is taking donations and donors are receiving governance tokens with no expectation of profit. These donations are not tax deductible at this point in time."

This copy, from 1787, is one of only two not held in institutional collections, the report says. 

People at the time it was made weren't sure if it would become a souvenir worth holding onto, said Kenneth Rendell, a Boston dealer who specializes in historic documents. 

He told the WSJ: “People knew they should probably save the Declaration, but it took a while before this constitutional framework affected ordinary people."

“Of course now everyone is running to the Constitution for protection and all our biggest issues feel like constitutional questions.”

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