- Citadel CEO Ken Griffin bought a rare copy of the US constitution for $43 million on Thursday.
- Griffin outbid a crowdfunding crypto collective that raised more than $40 million from 17,437 donors.
- Griffin plans to lend the rare document to an art museum in Arkansas for free.
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin bought a rare copy of the US constitution on Thursday in a Sotheby's bidding war that broke records, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
Griffin paid $43.2 million for the 234 year-old document, effectively outbidding a crowdfunding crypto collective called ConstitutionDAO that raised more than $40 million from 17,437 donors in less than a week.
The US Constitution that was up for auction at on Thursday is an official first-edition printed copy of the document. It is one of just 13 remaining copies that survived a 500-print run in 1787. The document is just one of two that remains in private hands, with all of the other copies owned by institutions.
If purchased by ConstitutionDAO, the group had planned to immediately preserve and protect the document, and hoped to find a home for it at a venue that would allow the public to view it for free, such as a museum like the Smithsonian. That decision would have ultimately been left to a democratic vote by the people who donated to the project.
Griffin plans to lend the document to a free art museum in Arkansas, which is along the lines of ConstitutionDAO's intentions with the document: put it on display for the people.
Despite the good intentions, Griffin's auction win is likely to draw him even more ire from the retail investment community that has lobbed unfounded accusations around his involment with Robinhood, payment for order flow, and the trading activity in GameStop, AMC Entertainment, and other meme stocks.
But to Griffin, those conspiracies are just a bad SNL joke.