Tron Crypto Founder Spends $6 Million on a Banana and Says He Plans to Eat It

If you’ve ever felt similar you discarded excessively overmuch wealth connected worldly you don’t need, I person immoderate quality that volition astir apt marque you consciousness better. This week, Justin Sun, the laminitis of cryptocurrency steadfast Tron, announced that helium had purchased a banana for conscionable implicit $6 million. Now, helium plans to devour it.

It should beryllium noted that this isn’t conscionable immoderate aged banana. No, instead, it’s portion of an creation grounds by famed creator Maurizio Cattelan, whose enactment has appeared successful some of the astir reputable galleries and museums successful the world. Cattelan’s “Comedian,” which debuted successful 2019, features the aforementioned banana stuck to a partition with duct tape, and has caused contention and consternation passim the creation world, with immoderate radical calling it a savvy satirical gag and others referring to it as being the purview of “idiot artists, collectors, dealers, and critics.”

© Sotheby’s

Now, Sun, who founded the DeFi token Tron successful 2014, has emerged arsenic the winning bidder successful an auction of the creation installation at Sotheby’s auction house that took spot Thursday. Sun’s acquisition of the banana present makes it “arguably the astir costly effect successful the world,” the New York Times reports.

“I’m excited to stock that I person successfully acquired Maurizio Cattelan’s iconic work, Comedian for $6.2 million,” Sun wrote connected X. “This is not conscionable an artwork; it represents a taste improvement that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community. I judge this portion volition animate much thought and treatment successful the aboriginal and volition go a portion of history. I americium honored to beryllium the arrogant proprietor of the banana.”

If taping a banana to a partition doesn’t precisely look similar the apotheosis of originative achievement, the enactment has been referred to arsenic a critique of the creation marketplace itself, designed to skewer whichever rube is dumb capable to acquisition it. Indeed, successful his 2019 reappraisal of the work, The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones wrote that the banana itself should not beryllium mocked, arsenic the banana itself is designed to mock “the marketplace since it is patently not worthy the terms astatine which it is sold.” Jones added: “As Damien Hirst said, merchants are unpleasant radical who merchantability crap to idiots.”

If this is, indeed, the constituent of Comedian, it appears that Sun has offered himself up arsenic the latest consenting unfortunate of capitalist excess. After Sun has eaten the banana from Comedian, each helium volition beryllium near with is simply a “certificate of authenticity” from Cattelan, which whitethorn accrue successful worth implicit time. So, basically, he’s paying $6 cardinal for a gaffe of paper.

But then, radical similar Sun (that is, the denizens of the DeFi and web3 communities) look to person structured their full lives astir spending immense sums of wealth connected things of negligible value. After all, Comedian is strikingly similar—in some signifier and function—to the NFT craze that took the crypto satellite by tempest respective years ago, which—like Cattelan’s “certificate of authenticity”—asked consumers to ammunition retired millions for what was small much than a slot successful a decentralized database. In Cattelan’s case, his enactment whitethorn proceed to beryllium valuable, fixed his presumption arsenic 1 of the creation world’s astir mercurial figures. When it comes to NFTs, however, the marketplace has obviously shifted, leaving those who shelled retired fortunes for them with small but a cratered slope account.