Citadel CEO Ken Griffin said that he outbid the ConstitutionDAO group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts for a first-edition printing of the Constitution at a Sotheby's auction Thursday, killing the hopes of the ragtag bunch of online donors who had hoped to make a bold statement about the future of the internet.
Griffin plans to have a museum in Arkansas put the historic document on display. Had the ConstitutionDAO group beat Griffin in the auction — which closed at more than $42 million, more than double the Sotheby's estimate of $20 million — the group's founders had promised to have the people who donated to the bidding effort vote on where it should be displayed.
Protocol spoke to one of ConstitutionDAO's leaders on Monday ahead of the auction about how the organization coalesced and managed to raise over $40 million in cryptocurrency in just one week. "It's a much more participatory way to interact with history. We are going beyond museums. Everyone can choose where and how the Constitution is displayed," Will Papper, one of the DAO's founding members and the co-founder of Syndicate Protocol, said on Monday.
It's been a good week for Griffin. Robinhood, a notable partner of Citadel Securities, was recently cleared of collusion with the market maker when the online brokerage blocked purchases of popular meme stocks earlier this year.