Crypto mogul eats R112-million banana

Controversial crypto mogul Justin Sun beamed as he ate a $6.2-million (R112-million) banana in Hong Kong, a spectacle that ratcheted up the spotlight on digital assets as the industry tries to keep an historic market rally on track.

The banana comes from a viral conceptual artwork, Comedian, comprised of the fruit duct-taped to a wall, which Sun bought in a Sotheby’s auction last week.

For Sun, the conspicuous consumption becomes a part of art history, and, as the sculpture’s owner, he has the right to manifest the piece with a new banana.

The artwork, like crypto, ultimately derives meaning from an underlying idea, said China-born Sun, who until recently was better known as the target of US Securities and Exchange Commission fraud allegations that he rejects.

Bridging memes, crypto and art is “very meaningful,” he said in an interview.

Displays like Sun’s event on Friday, whatever their stated goal, draw eyeballs to a crypto market that lives or dies on momentum and where retail investors have yet to dive into the latest boom with the intensity evident in the pandemic — perhaps reflecting painful memories of how the 2021 bubble quickly burst.

Investors on ‘Sidelines’

“From a retail perspective, interest is clearly growing as trading in Bitcoin has picked up significantly,” said Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro.

“However, we are yet to see the levels we’ve seen in previous cycles, which signals that we’ve got a wave of retail investors still sitting on the sidelines watching.”

When fear of missing out — FOMO — peaks, speculative ardour spills from Bitcoin to smaller tokens or altcoins.

But while Bitcoin is on a record-breaking tear and almost hit $100,000 atop President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda, many altcoins are trading below the highs posted three years ago.

Other relevant metrics include South Korea’s Kimchi premium, which compares the cost of Bitcoin there with the offshore price.

The premium tends to stretch during trading manias but is currently absent altogether.

Elsewhere, a global index of the market for nonfungible tokens — blockchain-based digital collectibles — is languishing at about one-fifth its all-time peak.

“Retail FOMO hasn’t returned to 2021 levels,” said Jupiter Zheng, partner at crypto firm HashKey Capital. “Only a portion of altcoins are performing well.”

Some industry participants flag institutional Bitcoin demand as the initial driving force for the $1 trillion jump in the crypto market sparked by Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory.

The president-elect’s platform includes a promise of friendlier regulations and the creation of a strategic US Bitcoin stockpile.

FOMO Stirring

Others argue greater retail-investor engagement is already underway, citing the recent record high of popular altcoin Solana, spiking downloads of crypto exchange apps and proliferating pumps of memecoins on social media.

There are “clear signs that retail investors have returned to the crypto market post-election,” said Caroline Bowler, chief executive officer of digital-asset exchange BTC Markets Pty.

A significant number of trading accounts dormant since 2020 and 2021 sprang back to life in November, she said. 

Sun, 34, is an adviser to the HTX exchange and creator of the Tron blockchain. The SEC has accused Sun of fraud and market manipulation over TRX, a token related to Tron.

He has said the lawsuit lacks merit. Sun recently made a splash with a $30 million investment in Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto project, praising its potential and denying the move was politically motivated.

Trump has vowed to make the US the global home for crypto and plans to undo a Biden administration crackdown sparked by a market rout in 2022 that exposed risky practices and fraudulent activity.

Such a backdrop is likely to draw more crypto executives into the limelight.

“I’m very optimistic about the Trump administration and their crypto regulation,” said Sun, who has placed a banana on his profile on social media platform X.

“They understand crypto a lot more than the past SEC regulation.”