Interview: Tong, PANews

Written by Zen, PANews

"Slash youth" Justin Sun has recently gained two new titles, namely "Cattleya Banana Holder" and "World Free Financial Advisor and Largest Investor in US President Trump's Crypto Project."

The last time Sun Yuchen made a sensation in an auction was in 2019, when he bid $4,567,888 for Buffett's charity lunch. This time, Sun Yuchen did not expect that the banana he bought for $6.24 million would receive unprecedented attention. "Even my relatives in the village saw the news and asked me about it." On November 29, Sun Yuchen held a special banana launch conference at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong and ate the banana in public.

After the meeting, Justin Sun accepted an exclusive interview with PANews. In addition to supporting Hong Kong as a gathering point for art and Web3, he, who has invested heavily in Trump's crypto project, is also optimistic about the development of the US crypto market and is full of confidence in 2025.

The world's most expensive banana draws worldwide attention

As the bidding price continued to rise, Sotheby's auctioneer Buck sighed: "I never thought I would say '$5 million for a banana.'" In the end, the banana was sold for $5.2 million. Including the handling fee, the total transaction price reached $6.24 million. Justin Sun paid the auction fee in cryptocurrency.

Before the auction, Justin Sun's team estimated the banana's value at $2 million to $5 million. "There were seven bidders in total. I didn't think I could win the bid, so I set a reserve price for myself. If it was much more than $5 million, I wouldn't buy it." Sun said that he found it a little unbelievable within 10 seconds of successfully bidding, after all, he was just trying to join in the fun. Then he received interview invitations from global media, which surprised him. He then made a decision to eat the banana and become a part of its history.

It is reported that the banana was bought by Sotheby's staff from a fruit stand on Manhattan's Upper East Side that morning. The owner of the fruit stand is from Bangladesh and revealed that the banana was sold for 35 cents. This means that the auction price is 14.85 million times the actual value of the banana.

"The most expensive banana in history" has successfully landed on major news and social media hot searches. The expensive auction itself is a true representation of the meaning of the work. Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's conceptual art work (Comedian) looks like a fresh banana taped to the wall. Its original intention was to challenge the audience's traditional perception of art in a humorous and absurd way. Through an ordinary banana, it explores the value of art, the nature of consumerism, and the absurdity of the art market, intending to satirize market speculation. Before the auction, the BAN Meme coin launched by Sotheby's vice president also successfully warmed up this auction event in the crypto circle, and the market value of BAN reached a maximum of US$378 million. It was this Meme coin that made Justin Sun pay attention to the auction of bananas.

In fact, this work is limited to three pieces, two of which were sold for $120,000 in 2019, and the third was donated to the Guggenheim Museum. Each "work" has a corresponding collection certificate and installation instructions, and the owner can replace the banana at any time according to his wishes. So even if Justin Sun eats this banana, he can replace it with another one. Previously, the work was eaten by the audience when it was exhibited in Miami and South Korea.

‘This is more than just a work of art, it represents a cultural phenomenon that connects the art, meme and cryptocurrency communities. I believe this work will inspire more thinking and discussion in the future and will become a part of history.’

In Sun Yuchen's eyes, the banana is also in line with the spirit of blockchain. "It can be assembled at will and exhibited anywhere at will, as long as I authorize it. This is also equivalent to the charm of decentralization, a bit like the blockchain and crypto world."

In fact, Justin Sun had previously tried to combine art and the crypto community. When the NFT concept was popular in 2021, he donated his works including Picasso’s (Reclining Nude with Necklace), crypto artist Beeple’s (Ocean’s Front), (ABUNBANCE) (5 pieces), and a complete set of NFT works (Cube) by crypto artist Pak to the APENFT Foundation. The total value of these masterpieces exceeds 200 million yuan, all of which are used for the APENFT Foundation’s exploration of "art + blockchain".

The bananas worth $6.24 million were certainly expensive, but they successfully attracted global attention.

We will try to convince Trump to develop TRON. 2025 will be the big year for cryptocurrencies.

In Sun Yuchen’s mind, “Banana Holder” is just an amateur label, and his other recently added title “World’s Free Financial Advisor and Largest Investor in US President Trump’s Crypto Project” has also received widespread attention.

Public reports show that Justin Sun invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), becoming the project's largest investor.

When asked why he invested in WLFI, Justin Sun said: "I have been in this industry for 12 years and have experienced three cycles. Many people may think that our industry may not have enough technological development and many things, and we still need mass adoption. People often ask questions, what are you doing and what is the use? I have the opposite view. I think our industry technology and everything are ready. It's just that there have been many regulatory reasons that have prevented us from using them and have restricted their use."

In Sun Yuchen's view, the stablecoin on TRON is the most typical case. The innovation of stablecoin technology is far beyond that of banks and Swift, but it is still restricted in many places. And supervision should start from the United States, because the United States is a model for all countries, and everyone looks at the example of the United States.

“After all, I understand crypto, so I can share with WLFI a lot of information about how crypto thinks, what directions are easiest to take, and how to get the most customers. We have a strong synergy between the two sides.” The World Free Finance project is a combination of traditional finance and blockchain, hoping to allow traditional banks to deposit money in DeFi, and for DeFi money to enter traditional finance.

Sun Yuchen said that he would persuade Trump to develop DeFi on TRON. If WDFI issues a new USD stablecoin in the future, he would suggest that he issue it on TRON. Currently, USDT is mostly used in exchanges and for some payments, and it has not yet entered everyone's life. "I think with WLFI, DeFi, including TRON, can enter everyone's life. This is my dream."

"I think 2025 is indeed a big year. The four-year cycle of the crypto industry is very obvious. Now it is superimposed with Trump's election and a regulatory-friendly environment. But I won't predict the price, because sometimes the price will exceed your expectations." Sun Yuchen recalled that he bought $0.5 worth of Bitcoin on Taobao. In the era when people were not sensitive to prices, everyone thought it was crazy when it rose to 10 yuan.