The auctioneer could barely conceal his laughter as he banged his gavel. He had just sold Comedian - an artwork consisting of a normal banana duct taped to a wall - for $5.2m (£3.96m). Once fees were added the full price was £5m.

The buyer was cryptocurrencyA digital currency in which transactions are verified and records maintained by a decentralised system using cryptography, rather than by a centralised authority. billionaire Justin Sun, founder of blockchainA secure database which records transactions, especially cryptocurrency transactions. platform Tron and owner of file-sharing app BitTorrent. Sun is a maverick. Last year he proposed buying the bank Credit Suisse and putting it on "Web 3.0". He has also been accused of manipulating the crypto market to benefit his own assets.²

After Wednesday night's auction at Sotheby'sA British-founded multinational company that organises the sale of art, jewellery and collectable items. It is known for its auction houses. New York, Sun said: Comedian is "not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes and the cryptocurrency community". 

He announced that he planned to eat the banana. If his bites are average sized, each might be worth $1m (£794,000).

Comedian was created by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. His other works include a fully functioning toilet made of 24-carat gold, a sculpture of the PopeThe bishop of Rome and the head of the worldwide Catholic Church. being hit by an asteroid and a football team he assembled of Senegalese workers in Italy.

When Comedian was first shown at a Miami art fair in 2019, it shot him to a new level of infamy - especially after a performance artist grabbed it off the wall and ate it. It was quickly replaced with a backup banana.

Cattelan bought his bananas for 30 cents at a grocery store. He sold two versions of the work for $120,000 (£95,000) each and donated a third to the Guggenheim Museum.

Sun has not just bought a banana and some tape. The main part of the sale is a certificate of authenticity. This grants him the right to recreate the artwork whenever he wants. 

The sale of Comedian joins a long list of transgressive and bizarre art sales. In 1961, Italian artist Piero Manzoni claimed to fill 90 tin cans with his own faeces. One of them sold for €275,000 (£229,000) in 2016.

In 2014, Tracey Emin's My Bed - a bed the artist slept in while depressed in the 1990s - sold for £2.5m art auction house Christie's. Five years later, Christie's sold a grid of copper and steel bricks by the minimalist artist Carl Andre for £2.4m. In 2021, the NFTNon-fungible tokens are digital tokens that represent ownership of unique items. They can be bought and traded online.  of a work by the digital artist Beeple went for $69.3m (£54.8m).³

Some think Sun is a fool. A great painting like the Mona Lisa is valuable in part because of the skill used to create it. Comedian is a banana taped to a wall.

Many artists make works that require great technical abilities but struggle to sell them. That Cattelan's banana and tape combo is worth so much is a kick in the teeth to them.

Yet others believe Comedian makes a bold point. Cattelan reveals how stupid the art market is, they say. He shows us how we have forgotten the real value of things. As collector Sarah Andelman, who bought Comedian in Miami, says: "It really reflects our time, the absurdity of everything."

And bananas do have a dark story to tell. Banana company Chiquita funded violent right-wing paramilitaryAn unofficial group organised like a military force. groups in ColombiaA country in South America with a population of just over 50 million. .⁴ Illegal drugs have been shipped in banana crates.⁵ Cattelan might be highlighting the fruit's real cost.

Has he gone bananas?

Yes: Sun may be immensely wealthy. But even for someone with his resources, buying a banana for £5m is ludicrous. Like many viral moments, Comedian will soon be forgotten. He will regret his involvement.

No: Art moves faster than society. Monet and Van Gogh were not understood at first, but now they are seen as greats. Sun and Cattelan both have a vision. Comedian will enter the history books.

Or... It is not Sun who is bananas. It is the world itself. We live in a world riven with injustice and inequality. But instead of fighting it, we expend time and money pondering a banana taped to a wall.