From a $6 Million Banana to Advising Trump: The Justin Sun Story
I knew that Banana was up to something..
Just last week, Justin Sun purchased a banana auctioned off at Sotheby’s for $6 million. The bill was paid in crypto by the tech billionaire, turning heads as the banana itself was destined to rot just a few days after the steep purchase.
When I first wrote about it, I mentioned how the commodification — or tokenization, rather — of culture was happening before our very eyes. How a moment itself had become a meme, and the little yellow banana duct-taped to a wall was its icon. That banana went on to inspire its own meme token on Solana, with the ticker $BAN, bringing in hefty profits for early investors bullish on the idea of the banana — otherwise known as Comedian by artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Now, that same billionaire, Justin Sun, has joined the ranks of none other than President-elect Donald Trump, further cementing and crystallizing this post-modern timeline we’re living in. Sun made a $30 million investment into World Liberty Financial, a crypto project closely tied to Trump and his family. In addition to the investment, Sun was appointed as an adviser to WLFI and took to X (formerly Twitter) to say:
“We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial as its largest investor. TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation.”
The face-value absurdity of buying a banana for $6 million is already so pop. Pair that with Donald Trump, who has been a key figure in pop culture for decades, and the narrative writes itself. Trump’s appearances in pop culture are iconic: the Pizza Hut commercial with his then-wife Ivana Trump in 1995, the Domino’s ad in 2005, and his cameo in Home Alone 2 in 1993, to name just a few examples of his intersection between business mogul and entertainment figure. Most recently, during his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump even served McDonald’s to supporters in the drive-thru — it doesn’t get much more pop than that.
It’s interesting to consider this moment in time and how a $6 million purchase is driving attention to Justin Sun, the art world, crypto, Donald Trump, and a lone banana.
