Inflation? Justin Sun Eats Banana He Bought for $6.2 Million

Ever wondered what millions of dollars tasted like? Well, apparently, a banana.

Justin Sun, founder of layer-1 blockchain Tron, ate the banana that he bought for $6.24 million last week at Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in New York. The yellow fruit was part of Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous 2019 conceptual artwork of a duct-taped banana, called “Comedian,” which has become a highly memeable art piece—with two related meme coins to boot.

At the Peninsula hotel in Hong Kong, the Tron founder gathered journalists to give a speech about the “iconic” artwork he had recently purchased. Behind him was a plain white wall with Comedian taped to it. He then peeled it off the wall and started chowing down.

“It’s much better than other bananas,” Sun said to the crowd after his first bite, according to the Guardian. “It’s really quite good.”

Fortunately, the banana hadn’t been sitting there for five years before Sun decided to eat it.

Justin Sun Is Now Prime Minister of Liberland—What Does That Even Mean?

Tron founder Justin Sun is many things. You can now count prime minister among them. This week, the micronation of Liberland—a largely theoretical European state cooked up by right-wing libertarians in 2015—announced that it elected Sun to serve as its head of state.  So what exactly does that mean in practical terms? It depends on who you ask. The average person might say “nothing at all,” given the fact that Liberland lays claim to 2.7 miles of disputed, uninhabited floodplain currently being...

After winning the bid for the artwork, the Tron founder was provided with instructions on how to properly present and treat the piece, along with a certificate of authenticity. A key part of the instructions was to regularly replace the fruit, as otherwise it’d inevitably go mouldy.

According to The Guardian, Sun drew parallels between conceptual art and cryptocurrency before eating the banana. To that point, there are already two Solana meme coins based on the $6.2 million artwork.

Banana Tape Wall (BTW) has climbed 10% over the past 24 hours to a market cap of $1.7 million, reposting Sun’s stunt. While the larger of the two tokens Comedian (Ban) has climbed 9.5% to a market cap of $138 million.

Did Drake Just Reference a Solana Meme Coin in a Sneaker Ad?

Moving on from his rap beef with Kendrick Lamar earlier this year, Aubrey "Drake" Graham is gearing up for the latest launch from his NOCTA apparel brand, formed in collaboration with Nike—and some crypto traders believe he may have referenced a rising meme coin. Banana Tape Wall (BTW) was created on Pump.fun at the start of August, peaking at a market cap of $18 million. This Solana meme coin is exactly what it says on the tin, with the associated image showing a banana duct-taped to a wall. I...

On Monday, Sun announced a $30 million investment in the Trump-family backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) project, through the purchase of the WLFI governance token. The project is expected to launch as a borrowing and lending crypto service on Ethereum. Decrypt also learned that the project plans to issue a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.

“The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub,” Sun wrote, following his investment. “And Bitcoin owes it to Donald Trump!”