Justin Sun walked into the room flanked by his ordinary entourage of bodyguards and advisers and made his technique to the stage. Behind him, a banana was duct taped in place on a white wall. On both aspect, two blank-faced males in white shirts and black aprons stared into the ocean of cameras and smartphones. I questioned what they had been considering.
As for what I used to be considering, it was one thing alongside the strains of how ridiculous this all was. To present some background, on Nov. 21 Tron founder Justin Sun paid a whopping $6.2 million — together with $1 million in fee — at an public sale at Sotheby’s in New York for an art work known as Comic. The work, created by fashionable artist Maurizio Cattelan in 2019, is the aforementioned banana duct taped to the wall.
The response amongst many observers was the everyday one seen at any time when anybody spends a big sum of cash on fashionable artwork: bewilderment, a little bit of disgust, an eye fixed roll. I believe individuals who don’t like artwork can nonetheless admire the ability that goes into work or sculptures. If works like Comic or Unmade Mattress have any creative advantage, I can’t know it. Tron’s public relations group assured me artwork is subjective.
However it’s memecoin season and issues with completely no intrinsic worth are very in proper now. So it was hardly shocking that shortly after shopping for the banana-and-duct-tape combo, Sun stated he deliberate to eat it.
This has occurred twice earlier than: As soon as in 2019, when a efficiency artist took it from the Artwork Basel in Miami shortly after it was bought for $120,000. Then once more by a South Korean artwork pupil on the Leeum Museum of Artwork in Seoul in 2023.
It doesn’t have an effect on the art work. The banana and duct tape are changed often anyway.
The consumption passed off on the 5-star Peninsula Resort within the Tsim Sha Tsui space of Hong Kong on Friday, a stone’s throw from among the metropolis’s most infamous doss homes.
The gang consisted of a mixture of journalists and folks from the artwork and crypto industries, Tron and Sotheby’s workers and so-called key opinion leaders (KOLs). I imply the kind of people that put on garments that appear like they got here from the native market, however most likely value 1000’s of {dollars} — U.S. {dollars}, not Hong Kong. One fellow journalist had flown all the way in which from Shanghai only for the occasion. Round us within the lobby, servers in white swimsuit jackets served wine and different refreshments.
An data board close to the doorway stated Sun sought to immerse himself within the efficiency artwork of Cattelan, with Comic as his muse. “He envisions this iconic piece as a catalyst for sparking dialogues and exchanges,” the textual content learn.
Different individuals I spoke to in attendance had been extra skeptical, characterizing the occasion as little greater than a advertising and marketing gimmick.
It’s not the primary time Sun has courted the limelight. In 2019, he paid $4.57 million at a charity public sale to have lunch with Warren Buffett. In April this yr, he commissioned a theme tune for Tron written by legendary film composer Hans Zimmer.
He additionally served as Grenada’s everlasting consultant to the World Commerce Group and, extra not too long ago, grew to become prime minister of the libertarian micronation Liberland, which is positioned in a floodplain on the Croatian aspect of the Danube.
Sun has additionally made the headlines in far much less whimsical methods. Final yr the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee charged him with fraud and different securities regulation violations, together with “fraudulently manipulating the secondary market for TRX through extensive wash trading.” Sun responded on X that the swimsuit was with out advantage.
In the meantime, his attorneys have threatened media shops with authorized motion after they report on Tron’s use by terrorist teams.
Maybe the hope was that the banana would convey everybody collectively and allow them to neglect about this. Certainly, Sun appears to imagine the banana is the beginning of some kind of mass motion. “Is it simply a banana or something belonging to all of us?” he requested at one level.
He in contrast the method of changing the banana each few days to the altering Chinese language dynasties over the millennia. He praised the banana for a way a lot site visitors and a spotlight it had introduced himself and Tron. He famous that the banana’s worth went past the bounds of cash.
Then he ate it.
November in Hong Kong appears to simply be the prime season for odd crypto occasions. Luckily, in contrast to ApeFest final November, this time no person was hospitalized. As a substitute, upon leaving attendees obtained a reproduction of Comic together with a roll of duct tape and a spare banana.
A minimum of that’s my breakfast tomorrow sorted.
