The story about cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun and Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian keeps on giving.
Sun kept the promise he made immediately after buying the artwork, comprising a banana duct-taped to the wall, for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York by eating it on Friday in front of baying journalists. The day before, though, he made an even stranger announcement on X. He said he was going to buy 100,000 bananas from the New York street vendor who sold the fruit to Sotheby’s for 25 cents, before the house displayed the banana for last week’s auction.
Each banana comprising Comedian, which is represented by a certificate of authenticity, is replaced every two to three days when the work is exhibited.
The fruit seller is a 74-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant called Shah Alam. He runs a stall near the auction house on East 72nd Street and York Avenue.
When a New York Times reporter told Alam that the banana had sold for over $6 million, he started to cry. “I am a poor man,” he said. “I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.”
“To thank Mr. Shah Alam, I’ve decided to buy 100,000 bananas from his stand in New York’s Upper East Side,” Sun posted on X. “These bananas will be distributed free worldwide through his stand. Show a valid ID to claim one banana, while supplies last.”
However, the grand gesture went down like a lead ballon with Alam. He told the New York Times that buying so many bananas (worth $25,000) from his stand would only equate to $6,000 net profit. This is because firstly, it would cost him thousands of dollars to procure 100,000 bananas (which come in boxes of 100) from a Bronx wholesale market. Secondly, he said any money would rightly go to the fruit stand’s owner, not Alam.
The New York Times managed to contact the owner, Mohammad R. Islam, who said that he would share any profit between himself, Alam, and the six other employees who earn $12 an hour by working at his two fruit stands. That said, Sun – nor any of his representatives – have apparently been in touch with him about buying the bulk order of bananas.
Sun is yet to comment on the economic and logistical challenges of his offer.
In the latest twist, a Go Fund Me page has been set up for Alam, which at the time of writing has raised $13,500, far exceeding the target of $5,000.
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Alam, a widower, reportedly moved to the US in 2007 to be closer to his married daughter, who lives on Long Island. He told the newspaper in Bengali that he rents a basement apartment, which he shares with five other men, for $500 a month.