Crypto, “Buying” the US Constitution, and What This Has To Do With a Classic Cubs Collapse — Apropos of Nothing
Here’s an issue of Apropos of Nothing, my occasional newsletter. It’s a bit longer than usual… but hang with me and we’ll cover a lot of ground… from Covid to crypto to the Constitution to the Cubs to the Arab Spring to a dozen eggs that (no joke) nearly blinded me.
Hello from isolation!
So, I done went and got Covid. An extremely mild case: I basically never had any symptoms. I’m fine and my family is fine (no one else tested positive). BUT, I have to isolate for ten days and my kids have to quarantine and therefore my wife must quarantine. So, basically, I get a bizarre vacation: I’m symptom-free and staying at my parents’ little used apartment and my wife has to be super-super-mom (she was already super-mom). Good times!
Well, I’ve had some extra time on my hands this week. So, like seemingly every other man who is bored and in lockdown I… did some crypto shit.
I’ve been wanting to learn more and know that the best way to learn is by doing, so I got beyond just buying crypto and jumped into more advanced — and risky — endeavors. One particular project caught my eye:
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve joined an effort to… buy the US Constitution. More specifically, I’ve contributed to an effort to buy an original copy of the US Constitution, which is being auctioned by Sotheby’s on Thursday. Even more specifically, I’ve traded some ETH for tokens that, if the bid is successful, would give me a vote (governance rights) in a DAO (distributed autonomous organization) on what to do with this copy of the Constitution. We (ConstitutionDAO) could vote to put it in a museum, a safe-deposit box, or to… IDK… burn it. (We’ll get back to that dark possibility in a moment.)
As of now (Wednesday morning) the DAO (think of it as a co-op, only with anonymous members) has raised about 2700 ETH or $11.5M. Not bad for an effort that just got organized a few days ago! It will likely take $20M+ to win the auction. I predict some crypto whale will splash in and put the DAO over the top at the last minute. It would be quite a flex and… that’s kind of what this is all about, right? Like why else am I bidding to “own” the constitution? Because it makes for good content and cocktail party conversation, if I’m honest. I mean, I don’t actually want to worry about the relative humidity of the museum / vault where this parchment would be stored! But… that’s actually what I’m bidding on. I’m bidding for responsibility. WTF? Pretty sure I have enough of that as a grown-ass man with three kids, a dog, a job, and a mortgage.
But really what I’m doing is trying to understand this newfangled world. And to understand it, I knew I had to dig in. To “fall down the rabbit hole” as it were. Well, I haven’t fallen very far down, but I have learned a lot. First, it’s really stressful taking custody of your crypto. You could argue on both sides of this, but I really don’t like being responsible for my own crypto and find it absurd that safeguarding twelve random English words (my private key) is all that protects my investments. Call me naïve or old, but I prefer to outsource this security/loss risk to a trusted institution (a bank, let’s say!). Second, I now see how totally janky (I mean nascent!) most crypto stuff is. The UX is terrible. A scammer’s paradise. And also an entrepreneur’s paradise. There is so much opportunity to make this more user-friendly, safer, and cheaper (it cost me ~$60 in “gas” to make my ~$120 contribution to the DAO).
OK, back to my effort to buy (governance rights to a copy of) the Constitution… So, what if the DAO I’ve joined wants to torch the thing!? This possibility hadn’t occurred to me until after I’d already contributed, but… it’s not that far-fetched! After all, there is precedent for people to buy historical artifacts only to blow them up. I know, because I’ve witnessed it firsthand!…
Paging Steve Bartman
Chicago, 2003… The Cubs were five outs from winning the NLCS when superfan Steve Bartman famously prevented Moises Alou from making an out, leading the Cubs to choke in spectacularly Cubby fashion.
The Cubs lose. Bartman is a goat (not the GOAT) and the ball (which he didn’t even catch himself, the poor schmo) is auctioned off for $106,000. The buyer decides to… absolutely fucking obliterate the ball (and the “curse of Bartman”) at Harry Caray’s restaurant in River North. I was there! A young reporter with WBEZ, I saw the ball’s pyrotechnic demise with my own eyes., (In 2016, the Cubs gave Bartman, who went through hell, a World Series ring after they actually, finally won it all.)
Back to this week… Not long after I contributed, a member of the Constitution DAO Discord server (jokingly, I hope) posted:
“so is there going to be a vote to burn this thing [the US Constitution] or no?”
And, like… shit. I mean that could happen. I just joined a collective with a bunch of randos to… own one of 13 extant original copies of the Constitution. I don’t know these people or their intentions. What if the big whale that I expect to put this bid over the top is Vladimir Putin??? What an epic troll that would be of Vlad. Right? I mean Vlad could just buy the Constitution at the auction outright (it’s not like he needs the DAO’s money to afford it), but wouldn’t it be sweeter for him or some other bad actor to bait and switch like this?
This is dark, but… not far-fetched? Black Mirror-esque? This effort to purchase the Constitution is getting a lot of press right now. A CNBC piece, WSJ article, etc.. and an exuberant VC tweeted:
“this kind of feels like a twitter/arab spring moment for the dao”.
That should’ve made me excited, but I cringed when I saw that analogy. I knew what he meant: the Arab Spring was Twitter’s big coming out moment. Dictators beware! Twitter is coming for you! Governments actually fell thanks, in no small part, to Twitter and social media. Only that euphoria proved to be short lived: Soon, dictators (and wannabes) would weaponize social media against the masses.
Anyway, I’m excited about this new tech! Really! This ability to anonymously organize and, IDK, build a new, more equitable finance system, could have major implications. DAO’s are a very cool idea: Anyone can (pay to) join one and vote on what the collective should do (kind of like a union or a co-op). But what will the unintended consequences be? IDK! No one does! I’m only just getting my feet wet with this stuff. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that we need to think about this stuff before/as we build this tech and not (a la Facebook) many years later, if ever.
Meanwhile, hit me up on Friday; I may have a slice of the Constitution to sell to the highest bidder.
Apropos Of Nothing
I was nearly blinded by a dozen eggs this week. For real! Like I said, I’m staying at my parents’ apartment, which has been little-occupied since the pandemic started. I took a tray of eggs out of the fridge and BOOM! they exploded inches from my face! Egg shrapnel everywhere. The eggs were so old… (how old were they!?)… They were so old that they’d turned into literal stink bombs and blew up when faced with a rapid temperature rise. (Pics here.) I’m lucky no shrapnel hit me in the eye and lucky that the goop had completely dried up, so it didn’t end up in my hair or on the walls. Just lots of stinky gas. Hmmm, a totally humdrum thing that’s gassy and ends up being dangerous.
OK, y’all if you made it this far, congrats here’s my private key: aardvark snazzy metamask mega maid rooster nachos meshugenah homer bartman gefilte chutzpah.
Next time not from isolation,
Dan
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