Tron founder Justin Sun paid $6.2 million at a New York auction for an art piece consisting of a banana taped to a wall. Now, he plans to eat it.
“I’ve bought the banana,” Sun wrote in a Nov. 21 X post. “This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.”
“In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience,” he added.
The artwork is Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” and is literally a fresh banana stuck to a wall with duct tape. However, the artwork’s owner can replace the banana as it rots and also the tape as needed, so Sun has practically paid for instructions on how to tape a banana to a wall and a certificate of authenticity to call it Comedian.
Sotheby’s, who hosted the auction, said on X that there were “over six minutes of heated bidding” for the work, which was its first time ever going under the hammer.
Bidding started at $800,000 and quickly rocketed to millions of dollars as the auctioneer quipped that “it’s slipping through the auction room” and urged bidders not to “let it slip away” to groans from the audience.
Sun managed to outbid six others with the hammer falling on his $5.2 million bid, plus $1 million in Sotheby’s fees — over four times its presale estimate of between $1 million and $1.5 million.
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Sun probably needs all the nutrients he can get.
The Tron founder’s blockchain processes the bulk of volume for the world’s largest stablecoin, Tether (USDT), which was reportedly under criminal investigation by the United States Justice Department.
Sun has also reportedly been under criminal investigation by the FBI and New York prosecutors.
He was also sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission alongside Tron in March 2023 for allegedly selling the Tron (TRX) token as an unregistered security and wash-trading it to raise its price, which he denies.
If Sun does eat the banana, he’ll be the third documented case of someone chowing down on the artwork.
In April last year, a student ate the banana when the work was on display in a Seoul art museum and taped the peel back on the wall. He later said he ate it because he skipped breakfast and was hungry.
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The first drama with the banana came when the artist David Datuna ate the work after it sold for $120,000 at its 2019 Miami Art Basel debut. The banana was later replaced, and he faced no legal consequences.
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