Crypto giant, Justin Sun buys Duct-Taped Banana artwork for $6.2M, plans to eat it
Justin Sun, the founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron, has purchased Maurizio Cattelan’s provocative artwork Comedian—a banana duct-taped to a wall—for $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York. Sun intends to eat the banana, calling the gesture a “unique artistic experience.”
“This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community,” Sun wrote in a Nov. 21 post on X. He plans to consume the banana within the next few days.
The artwork, which includes instructions for replacing the banana as it rots and a certificate of authenticity, sparked intense bidding. Starting at $800,000, the auction quickly surpassed its presale estimate of $1–$1.5 million. Sun ultimately won the piece after bidding $5.2 million, plus an additional $1 million in fees, outlasting six other competitors.
Comedian consists of a real banana secured to a wall with duct tape and is regarded as a critique of contemporary art values and market dynamics. Cattelan described it as an honest reflection on the “speed and business” dominating modern art fairs.
This isn’t the first time the banana has been consumed. In 2019, artist David Datuna ate the artwork after it sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami. Similarly, in 2022, a student in Seoul ate the banana, citing hunger after skipping breakfast.
Sun’s high-profile acquisition comes amid ongoing legal challenges. The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly investigating Sun and Tether, while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against him in March 2023. The SEC accused Sun of selling unregistered securities, wash trading Tron tokens, and artificially inflating trading volumes to attract investors. Sun denies these allegations.
The SEC claims Sun and his companies—Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry (formerly BitTorrent)—violated securities laws by distributing billions of crypto assets and manipulating the price of BitTorrent’s BTT token. In response, Tron’s legal team contested the SEC’s interpretation of the Howey test, which determines whether transactions qualify as investment contracts.
