ConstitutionDAO was an online collective that raised about $47 million in ETH in November 2021 to buy a first printing of the U.S. Constitution at Sotheby's, lost the auction to Citadel founder Ken Griffin, and shut down five days later. PEOPLE is the ERC-20 token its 17,437 contributors received, issued at 1,000,000 PEOPLE for every ETH donated. The DAO no longer exists, but PEOPLE still trades as a politics-themed meme token, priced near $0.008 with a market value of about $41 million as of September 2026.
That leaves PEOPLE with an odd profile for a crypto asset. It has a well-documented origin, a refund formula locked into a smart contract, and no team, roadmap or product. Its value rests on the market's memory of one week in 2021 and on whatever political or meme cycle happens to be running.
Seven Days That Created a Token
The entire project, from the first Discord messages to the shutdown notice, took about two weeks. These are the dates that shaped PEOPLE.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Early to mid-November 2021 | Strangers on Twitter and Discord organize ConstitutionDAO to bid on one of 13 surviving copies of the Constitution's first printing, which Sotheby's estimated at $15 million to $20 million |
| The week before the sale | Contributors send roughly 11,600 ETH through a Juicebox crowdfunding page and receive PEOPLE in return |
| November 18, 2021 | Bidding lasts eight minutes. Ken Griffin wins at $43.2 million including the buyer's premium |
| November 23, 2021 | The core team announces the project has run its course and opens refunds |
| November 25, 2021 | A proposed successor token, We The People, briefly sends PEOPLE up about 200% |
| December 2021 | The team gives up control of the Juicebox project, PEOPLE gains listings on large exchanges, and the price sets its all-time high near $0.185 |
The DAO lost for reasons that had little to do with how much it raised. Every contribution sat in a public treasury, so anyone, rival bidders included, could see its ceiling. The organizers also had to hold money back to insure, store and transport the document if they won, which pushed the usable bid well below the $47 million headline.
How PEOPLE Was Issued
ConstitutionDAO ran its fundraiser on Juicebox, an Ethereum crowdfunding protocol, and Juicebox's write-up of the configuration spells out the rules. Contributors received 1,000,000 PEOPLE per ETH. The reserved rate was 0%, so the team received no allocation. The redemption rate was 100%, which let any holder burn PEOPLE and reclaim ETH at the same rate they paid in.
After the auction, the team set the funding target to zero, turning the whole treasury into redeemable overflow, and then transferred ownership of the project to a null address. Nobody, the original organizers included, can change those settings anymore.
Refunds moved slower than the math implied. Transaction costs on Ethereum regularly topped $50 in late 2021 and the median contribution was $217, so small donors stood to lose a large share of any refund to Ethereum gas fees. Weeks after the shutdown, about $23 million had still not been reclaimed. Those unredeemed contributions are the source of the roughly 5.07 billion PEOPLE that trade today.
Why PEOPLE Kept Trading After the Refunds
A refund formula acted as a reference price
Redemption gives PEOPLE a mechanical anchor. One million tokens reclaim one ETH, so the refund value of a single token equals the ETH price divided by 1,000,000. In the confusion after the shutdown, PEOPLE briefly traded far below that figure, touching $0.0009 on November 21, 2021, while ETH sat above $4,000. Speculators who noticed the gap bought in, and by January 2022 the supply was valued at roughly $300 million.
PolitiFi handed it a second cycle
The token's name and its link to the Constitution placed it in PolitiFi, the category of politics-themed crypto tokens that ran hard during the 2024 US election. PEOPLE climbed from about $0.013 in January 2024 to a 2024 high of $0.143, and for stretches of that year it was the largest PolitiFi token by market value. It moved like a memecoin the whole way, driven by headlines and social momentum while the token itself never changed.
Nobody runs it
The official ConstitutionDAO site states that PEOPLE has no rights, governance or utility beyond redemption, and that the former team will not endorse any future plans for the token. That sets PEOPLE apart from governance tokens attached to working protocols such as Uniswap, where holders vote on a live product. PEOPLE holders vote on nothing.
PEOPLE by the Numbers
Market figures come from CoinGecko and Etherscan as of September 14, 2026.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Price | About $0.0081 |
| Market capitalization | About $41 million |
| Circulating and total supply | 5.07 billion PEOPLE |
| 24-hour trading volume | About $6.3 million |
| All-time high | About $0.185, December 2021 |
| 2026 low | About $0.0048, June 2026 |
| Holding addresses | About 19,400 |
| Network | Ethereum (ERC-20) |
| Redemption value | About $0.0025 per PEOPLE, with ETH near $2,500 |
The last row is the one worth watching. At current prices, PEOPLE trades at a little over three times what the same tokens would reclaim through Juicebox. That premium, around $0.0056 per token, is the speculative part of the price, and it is the part that can disappear.
Risks Specific to PEOPLE
A position in PEOPLE carries risks that look different from those of a protocol token.
- There is no development team, treasury program or roadmap, so demand depends entirely on attention.
- The token sits about 95% below its all-time high, and drops of 50% or more within a few months have happened repeatedly.
- Liquidity is thin compared with major assets, which lets large holders and sudden news move the price sharply.
- Exchange support can shrink. At least one large platform removed PEOPLE from its margin trading service in November 2025.
- The redemption value moves with ETH and depends on a smart contract written in 2021, so it is a soft reference point that can fall.
- Political themes are seasonal. PolitiFi interest peaked around the 2024 election and faded with it.
Because those swings run in both directions, some traders prefer to short cryptocurrency through perpetual futures during fading phases instead of only buying rallies.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ConstitutionDAO in crypto?
ConstitutionDAO was a decentralized autonomous organization formed in November 2021 to buy an original printing of the U.S. Constitution with crowdfunded ETH. It raised about $47 million from 17,437 contributors, lost the Sotheby's auction on November 18, 2021, and dissolved within a week. Its PEOPLE token outlived it and still trades.
Can you still redeem PEOPLE for ETH?
Yes. The official ConstitutionDAO site still directs holders to the Juicebox project page, where PEOPLE can be burned for ETH at 1,000,000 PEOPLE per ETH, minus network fees. With PEOPLE trading above that rate as of September 2026, selling on the market returns more than redeeming.
Who owns the Constitution copy ConstitutionDAO bid on?
Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, bought it for $43.2 million. He loaned it to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas in 2022, and it went on display at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2025, where it is scheduled to stay through 2026.
Is PEOPLE a meme coin?
In practice, yes. PEOPLE began as a crowdfunding receipt, it has no utility today, and data sites classify it as a meme and PolitiFi token. Its price behaves like other community-driven tokens such as Dogecoin, rising and falling with sentiment.
What wallet can hold PEOPLE?
Any Ethereum wallet that supports ERC-20 tokens can hold PEOPLE, using the contract address 0x7a58c0be72be218b41c608b7fe7c5bb630736c71. Browser and mobile wallets suit active traders, while a hardware cold wallet keeps a long-term holding offline.
The Crowdfund That Became a Market
ConstitutionDAO proved that thousands of strangers could pool tens of millions of dollars within a week, and then showed how awkward it is to unwind that pool on a public blockchain. PEOPLE is what the experiment left behind. It carries a clear refund formula and a famous story, and its price is set by how much the market cares about either at a given moment.
That makes PEOPLE a sentiment instrument, best approached with small size and defined exits. Hold it through the PEOPLE/USDT spot market, trade it in either direction with PEOPLE perpetual futures, and find more project backgrounds in Crypto in a Minute.