ConstitutionDAO raised $47 million to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution, with token buyers getting the right to vote to do, well, something with it.
Now a new DAO has raised $11 million to buy a golf course in the latest example of entrepreneurs crypto crowdfunding startups rather than seeking seed, angel or venture capital investors.
It’s being pitched as the latest trend in crypto, with Bloomberg announcing on Nov. 17 — two days after the plan to purchase the historic document at auction crashed and burned under the weight of a billionaire bidder’s wallet — that “Crypto Crowdfunding Goes Mainstream With ConstitutionDAO Bid.”
CoinDesk, the largest crypto industry news outlet, called it the next gold rush.
Crowdfunding start-ups does work. Tracking device maker Tile and VR headset maker Oculus VR started that way, and tens of billions have been invested in platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
That said, crypto investing fads can sometimes be a little silly — which doesn’t mean they will fail, as Elon Musk tweet-powered joke memecoin Dogecoin’s $22.5 billion market cap makes clear.
This one is built on DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations. It is the vote-based, smart contract-powered governance mechanism at the heart of decentralized finance, or DeFi, projects.
See also: PYMNTS DeFi Series: Unpacking DeFi and DAO
It’s not the first time DAO-based crypto industry crowdfunding has been tried.
The DAO structure came to prominence in crypto back in April 2016 with the launch of The DAO, a crowd-funded, decentralized venture capital fund that was going to back projects selected by investors. It was hugely successful at launch, raising $150 million from more than 11,000 governance token buyers in less than a month.
A ‘Grand Experiment’
On New Year’s Day and Jan. 2, LinksDAO sold 9,090 NFT tokens on the OpenSea marketplace that act as membership cards in the golf course project.
To be clear, these NFTs do not bring any…
