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The auction featured six minutes of intense bidding, starting at $800,000 and soaring into millions.Justin Sun revealed plans to pay for the artwork using his cryptocurrency, Tron (TRX).He compared the banana art work having a conceptual connection to decentralization.Tron founder Justin Sun recently stated that he paid a staggering $6.2 million at a New York auction for a banana-taped art piece. The artwork Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan is a fresh banana affixed to a wall with duct tape. Notably, the owner of the piece can replace the banana as it decays and renew the tape as necessary.
Well, Justin Sun has his own reasons justifying the purchase while explaining what he plans to do with it. In a message on the X platform, Sun wrote:
“I’ve bought the banana. 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.”
Sotheby’s who hosted the auction said that the artwork saw “six minutes of heated bidding”. The bidding started for an initial price of $800,000 and swiftly surged into millions. Also, the auctioneers playfully remarked that “it’s slipping through the auction room”, urging bidders not to “let it slip away”, prompting groans and laughter from the audience.
However, Tron founder Justin Sun managed to outbid others with the hammer falling on his bid value of $5.2 million. Sun will be paying an additional $1 million as Stoheby’s fees.
The artwork made its debut in 2019 at Art Basel Miami Beach, showcased at the Perrotin gallery booth. It quickly sparked a frenzy, drawing such large crowds that the gallery had to remove it for safety reasons. Despite the chaos, all three pieces in the edition were sold, fetching between $120,000 and $150,000 each.
Justin Sun to Pay in Tron (TRX)?
Following the sale, during his interview with Bloomberg, Justin Sun said that he was considering paying $6.2 million in his own cryptocurrency Tron TRX $0.20 24h volatility: 0.7% Market cap: $17.13 B Vol. 24h: $1.02 B . Justifying his purchase to Bloomberg, he said:
“First of all, I’m a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, but I also buy a lot of art. I found about Comedian a month ago, and I loved the idea. It echoes with our idea of decentralization in the crypto world, because this is a conceptual artwork – it’s impossible for you to destroy the artwork itself.”
The Tron founder has been facing some ongoing lawsuits as well. Sun has reportedly faced a criminal investigation by the FBI and New York prosecutors. In March 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed a lawsuit against him and Tron, alleging that the Tron (TRX) token was sold as an unregistered security and subjected to wash trading to inflate its price.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
