DAO aims to raise $5M to resurrect Blockbuster Video

December 30, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Blockbuster

The BlockbusterDAO wants to raise at least $5 million to buy the iconic video rental brand from Dish Network and turn it into a streaming film studio.

A new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) has been formed with the goal of buying the Blockbuster brand from Dish Network and turning it into a film studio and streaming platform.

Blockbuster Video is an American video rental company founded in 1985 which once had 6,000 stores globally and was valued at over $8 billion, before it shuttered almost all of its operations in 2014. It is currently owned by Dish Network and operates just one store in Bend, Oregon.

The DAO interested in “liberating” Blockbuster from Dish Network is the aptly named BlockbusterDAO. The DAO explained in a Dec. 26 tweet its plans on rallying a grassroots effort to buy Blockbuster by raising at least $5 million through a Blockbuster DAO NFT minting event. Each NFT will be valued at 0.13 ETH.

BlockbusterDAO plans on turning Blockbuster into a decentralized film (DeFilm) streaming studio. DeFilm is an experiment launched in July which proposes to “actually make a movie with decision making happening on a blockchain.” ‘Block’ buster seems to be a fitting name for such a project.

Our mission is to liberate Blockbuster and form a DAO to collectively govern the brand as we turn Blockbuster into the first-ever DeFilm streaming platform and a mainstay of both the Web3 brands and products, but a powerhouse in the future of the film industry. Read the
— BlockbusterDAO (,) (@BlockbusterDAO) December 26, 2021

The DAO is currently composed of about 9,000 netizens on Twitter and a Discord server who deliberate over how the DAO can achieve its goals.

The BlockbusterDAO appears to be tapping into the social media led desire to resurrect memestock brands such as Gamestop and AMC, while following a similar path to that laid down by ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) just over a month ago. ConstitutionDAO aimed to buy an original copy of the Constitution of the United States of America from the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation at auction.

ConstitutionDAO ultimately failed to achieve its goal as hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin paid a total of $43.2 million for the copy in the Sotheby’s auction on Nov. 19. Following the auction, the DAO offered full refunds for anyone who donated. Those who did not take refunds kept their PEOPLE tokens.

Just over a month later on Dec. 23, PEOPLE was listed on Binance where it currently trades for about $0.11.

The ConstitutionDAO team has shown its support for the BlockbusterDAO efforts by tweeting on Dec. 27:

“PLEASE bring back blockbuster, @netflix has gone unchecked for far too long.”

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ConstitutionDAO: PEOPLE price pumps 200% as new ‘We The People’ token unveiled

November 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Meanwhile, the trading volumes across the crypto's main instruments dropped by nearly 100% in the same period.

PEOPLE, the governance token of ConstitutionDAO, soared in value by near 200% in just 24 hours despite its trading volumes falling through the cliff in the same period, data on CoinMarketCap shows.

The cost to purchase one PEOPLE token surged to $0.0321 compared to $0.0110 24 hours ago. In contrast, its trading volumes across the crypto exchanges dropped by almost 100% to over $181,000, reflecting that the ongoing bullish move had very little support behind it.

*PEOPLE price performance on a 24-hour adjusted timeframe. Source: CoinMarketCap*

The story so far

The massive upside momentum in the PEOPLE market came at a time when users must have been dumping it for the Ethereum blockchain's native token, Ether (ETH).

That is primarily because ConstitutionDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), crowdsourced over $47 million in Ether via the sale of PEOPLE. It wanted to use the proceeds to buy a rare copy of the U.S. constitution but lost its bids to billionaire Citadel CEO Ken Griffin at a recent Sotheby auction.

*Screenshot from ConstitutionDAO's community group. Source: Discord*

Left with no Constitution and $47 million worth of ETH funds in its multi-signature wallets, ConstitutionDAO decided to refund the entire amount to its donors. But many in the DAO's Discord community stressed that they did not want to pay the high refund gas fees.

In response, the ConstitutionDAO team provided two choices to its donors: either they could return their PEOPLE tokens for ETH (minus gas fees), or they can choose to receive a new governance token, dubbed We the People (WTP), without having to pay a gas fee, at the rate of 1 PEOPLE per WTP.

For everyone who wants to continue riding with us, you'll also be able to sign a message (without paying for gas) committing your funds to the DAO's treasury and get our governance token $WTP (We The People) back.

Of course, you can also do nothing and see how things play out
— ConstitutionDAO (, ) (@ConstitutionDAO) November 20, 2021

Meanwhile, in the event of donors not choosing to demand refunds, ConstitutionDAO will retain the capital.

As a result, the DAO will be able to keep a portion of ETH in its vaults as long as donors convert their PEOPLE to WTP or ignore any reimbursements. So if the value of Ether rises, the price of WTP will likely increase in tandem.

Therefore, the ongoing PEOPLE price rally hints that traders have been either choosing to hold it or buy it from the secondary markets to get hold of the WTP token at a later stage.

so, in my medium thoughtboi post, is it more impactful that @ConstitutionDAO raised $40m+ or that it pumped 4x as a memecoin after dissolving? https://t.co/ohX8SafyST
— Mike DAOdas (@mdudas) November 25, 2021

Juicebox a clear winner

ConstitutionDAO has not released any specific reason why it wants donors to reimburse their PEOPLE tokens via a new governance asset, given it has already announced that it would shut down after failing to win the U.S. constitution's rare copy.

David Gerard, the author of the book 'Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain' and a news blog of the same name, noted that Juicebox.money, another DAO that processes payments for ConstitutionDAO, typically collects 5% of all the money made by the project.

Therefore, Juicebox might have already made at least $2.35 million through the ConstitutionDAO crowdfund and may make more from the upcoming WTP-funded ventures, if there are any.

"Not too bad a payday," wrote Gerard.

Auction is lost. $40 million worth of $PEOPLE is now essentially worthless after the people who minted it say it no longer has a purpose. They talk about starting a new token, $WTP, with a new, nebulous purpose.
— Sam Rose (@samwhoo) November 24, 2021

For now, the outgoing ConstitutionDAO team has announced core contributor Brian Wagner and Web 3 expert Liminal Warmth as the project's new leaders.

Meanwhile, the community has been voting on how they could deploy their Ether-backed WTP reserves on other projects, with their ideas ranging from pursuing a copy of the Bill of Rights to making a new Web 3 constitution from scratch.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

BREAKING: ConstitutionDAO fails to win Sotheby’s auction

November 19, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Proceeds of the U.S. Constitution sale will benefit the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation.

The online group, ConstitutionDAO, has failed in its bid to purchase the last privately owned, 1st edition print copy of the U.S. Constitution at public auction at Sotheby’s on Thursday.

"The 'Official Edition' of The United States Constitution" was instead won by an unknown bidder for $41M (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 broke in an announcement on the official Discord. "While this was not the outcome we hoped for we still made history tonight," the post read.

This specific copy is one of just thirteen copies of the Official Edition of the Constitution from the Constitutional Convention. It was first purchased from Sotheby’s by the late real estate developer S. Howard Goldman in 1988 for $165,000. His widow Dorothy Goldman put it up for sale this year and decided that the proceeds will go to the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation.

Project participants began to band together just a week ago as a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, to pool funds for the auction. In the hours leading up to the sale, ConstitutionDAO had raised over $49 million in Ethereum donations collected via Juicebox, a platform for community-owned Ethereum-based projects.

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

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

ConstitutionDAO

The story so far

Juicebox a clear winner

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