Crypto entrepreneur eats banana artwork bought for $6.2m

A Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur has followed done connected his committedness to devour the banana from a $6.2m (£4.9m) artwork helium bought past week.

Justin Sun outbid six others to assertion Maurizio Cattelan's infamous 2019 enactment Comedian - a banana duct-taped to a partition - astatine Sotheby's auction location successful New York.

He ate the effect during a quality league successful Hong Kong wherever helium utilized the infinitesimal to gully parallels betwixt the artwork and cryptocurrency.

The banana is regularly replaced earlier exhibitions, with Mr Sun buying the close to show the installation on with a usher connected however to regenerate the fruit.

It has been eaten doubly earlier - archetypal by a show creator successful 2019 and again by a South Korean pupil successful 2023 - but neither paid immoderate wealth to bash so, fto unsocial $6.2m.

"Eating it astatine a property league tin besides go a portion of the artwork's history," Mr Sun said.

"It's overmuch amended than different bananas," helium added.

The 34-year-old said helium was intrigued by the work, admitting helium had "dumb questions" astir whether the banana rotted.

The New York Times reported a caller banana was bought for 35 cents connected the time of past week's auction, earlier becoming perchance 1 of the astir costly fruits successful the world.

Each attendee astatine the lawsuit connected Friday was fixed a banana and a rotation of duct portion arsenic a souvenir.

"Everyone has a banana to eat," Mr Sun said.

Mr Sun runs the Tron blockchain web - a work wherever users tin commercialized successful cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrencies are integer currencies that run autarkic of banks, offering the imaginable of precise unafraid decentralised transactions.

Mr Sun compared the artwork, and different abstract pieces similar it, to NFTs.

These "non-fungible tokens" are pieces of integer artwork that person nary intrinsic value, different than that prescribed by people.

NFTs tin beryllium traded connected platforms similar Mr Sun's.

Last year, helium was charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for offering and selling unregistered information tokens. Mr Sun denies the charges and the lawsuit is ongoing.

This week, Mr Sun disclosed helium made a $30m concern successful a crypto task backed by US President-elect Donald Trump.