Justin Sun, a vocal advocate for cryptocurrency, has faced legal challenges in the US, including charges from the SEC over unregistered security token offerings. For Sun, his acquisition of ‘Comedian’ (above) is about more than just owning a controversial piece of art—it’s a statement on the future of digital ownership, cryptocurrency, and speculative markets.
But at the stand at East 72nd Street and York Avenue, outside the Sotheby’s auction house where the conceptual artwork was sold, the offer landed with a thud against the realities of a New York City street vendor’s life.
It would cost thousands of dollars to procure that many bananas from a Bronx wholesale market, said Shah Alam, the 74-year-old employee from Bangladesh who sold the original banana used in Comedian, an absurdist commentary on the art world by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. And it would not be easy to transport that many bananas, which come in boxes of about 100.
Sun used crypto for the $6.2mn payment, which bought him neither the banana nor the duct tape on display at the auction. He instead acquired a certificate of authenticity and a set of instructions for how to assemble the artwork after buying his own banana and tape.Sun told the FT he was paying in stablecoin rather than fiat currency, and added: “I’m very excited [that] Sotheby’s takes crypto as payment.” Sun founded and runs Tron, a blockchain platform with a native token, TRX, which has a market capitalisation of $17.4bn.Tron facilitates a large proportion of the world’s transactions in Tether’s stablecoin, according to data from analytics website DefiLlama… Sun founded Tron in 2017 and a year later bought decentralised software company BitTorrent. In 2022, he was appointed as an adviser to Huobi, a China-founded crypto exchange since renamed HTX. www.ft.com/…
And then there is the math: The net profit from the purchase of 100,000 bananas by Mr Sun – who once bought a nonfungible token of a pet rock for more than US$600,000 – would be about US$6,000.
“There’s not any profit in selling bananas,” Mr Alam said.
As an employee who makes US$12 an hour during 12-hour shifts, he pointed out that any money would by rights go to the fruit stand’s owner, not him.
“I am not personally familiar with the exact cost of the bananas,” Mr Sun wrote in a text message sent shortly after a stunt on Nov 29 when he ate the original banana during a news conference at a Hong Kong luxury hotel. “Through this event, we aim not only to support the fruit stand and Mr Shah Alam but also to connect the artistic significance of the banana to everyone.”
Sun will derive value from using his own ‘brand’ of cryptocurrency to pay for the purchase, making it a promotional investment.
While this isn’t the first time the banana has been eaten—performance artist David Datuna famously ate it during an exhibition in 2019, and in 2023, a South Korean student did the same—Sun’s $6.2 million bid far eclipses any previous instances of consumption. In fact, it’s one of the most extravagant acts in art history.
For Sun, the banana is not just fruit; it’s a metaphor for the speculative nature of contemporary finance, particularly cryptocurrency. “NFTs are a lot like this banana,” Sun said, drawing a parallel between the value of the artwork and the value of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital assets that hold value only through the perception and demand of buyers.
As the founder of the Tron blockchain, Sun is no stranger to the world of digital assets and decentralised finance. “Like abstract art, NFTs exist based on what people are willing to pay for them. It’s all about perception,” he said.
virtual capital & political economy 