Justin Sun is making news by spending millions on a pardon from the incoming Trump administration and a famous piece of self-mocking art. Justin Sun must be the only person who can make a mockery of himself, art, and the law all in one week.
(Self) Mocking Art
On November 20th, a work of art consisting of a banana duct-taped to the wall was bought at Sotheby’s for $6.2 million. The buyer was one of Disruption Banking’s favorite charlatans: Justin Sun, the founder of Tron and alleged serial fraudster.
The conceptual work, entitled “Comedian,” was created by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who sold three certificates for the work at Art Basel in December 2019 for $120,000 and $150,000. At the time, the price tag for the work was seen as exorbitant, if not ridiculous. Now, it’s perhaps seen as a savvy investment.
Cattelan has spoken at length about market speculation in the art world, and he intended the piece as a satirical critique.
Cattelan said: “Comedian was not a joke; it was a sincere commentary on what we value… On what basis does an object acquire value in the art system?”
However, Comedian isn’t actually an object. The duct tape and the banana are replaceable, interchangeable, or dare I say, fungible. The work, or that which can be bought, is instead the idea of the banana and duct tape, replete with a certificate of authentication and detailed installation and maintenance instructions (because, alas, bananas are transitory things).
This conceit, that the idea and not the objet d’art is nothing new, but a school of thought running back to the 1960s, and its forbears well before that. Nevertheless, Cattelan’s Comedian captured the zeitgeist of the current moment, and for all that, fetching a hefty price tag.
According to Justin Sun, Comedian “represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.”
To be fair, it is to be expected that a guy who just spent overpaid $6 million on glorified instructions on how to duct-tape a banana to a wall would doubtless have something lofty to say about all this.
Sun went on to praise the relationship between Donald Trump’s return to the presidency and the recent surge of cryptocurrencies, predicting a strong demand for art among crypto enthusiasts as a result.
Mocking The Law
This might seem like window dressing and nothing more, but given that Sun was charged with fraud by the SEC in 2023, and for fear of being arrested, participated in the Sotheby’s auction remotely from Hong Kong, it prompts the casual observer to wonder if there was something more to Sun’s $6.2 million purchase of a banana.
Indeed, one might begin to wonder if the Sotheby’s purchase was a signal that Sun’s fortunes within the United States might be brightening. After all, just in the past week, Gary Gensler, Chairman of the SEC and crypto skeptic, announced his resignation. Could the SEC’s case against Sun get dropped once Trump is back in the White House and installs a pro-crypto chairperson?
While outlining this article, the working title was: “Searching for Meaning in Justin Sun’s $6.2 million purchase of a Banana Duct-taped to a Wall.” It seemed to capture the absurdist element of the story with a bit of sass. But then, inevitably, the twenty-four-hour news cycle kept on spinning and my bit of sass was quickly rendered moot. Instead, a new potential title presented itself: “Who needs a $6.2 million banana duct-taped to a wall when one can have a $30 million stake in a sketchy crypto company owned by the President?”
Enter World Liberty Financial
Announced on Tuesday, November 26th, Justin Sun has invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm that Trump launched in September in the home stretch of his presidential campaign.
How did the president-elect have time to put all this together and start another company in the heat of an election? It’s simple really.
Trump doesn’t own World Liberty Financial, despite appearances to the contrary. Like a long list of other entities, Trump has only licensed his name to the company and doesn’t assume legal exposure.
With a name so generic it sounds like a shell company unearthed in the Panama Papers, or perhaps a sister company to Prestige Worldwide, (the company Will Ferrell and John C Reilly’s manchildren characters create in 2008’s Stepbrothers), World Liberty Financial had gotten off to a rocky start.
In October, World Liberty Financial released the WLFI token, the roadmap of which stated the company’s intent to raise $300 million. Trump received billions of tokens for his role as Chief Crypto Advocate. Until this week investments had stalled at $21.2 million.
Now, with Sun’s $30 million buy-in, the amount of tokens sold stands at $51.2 million. This is significant because of a deal World Liberty Financial inked with Trump. Within the deal, Trump has a right to 75% of revenue of anything north of $30 million. Given that the dollar amount now stands at $51.2, Trump will be paid millions of dollars, money originating from a foreign-national crypto entrepreneur who has been charged with fraud by the SEC.
A Trumpworld Sinecure for Sun
Hours later, World Liberty Financial announced that Justin Sun had been brought in as an advisor to the company.
It looks like Justin Sun has just purchased a place in Trumpworld. And with it, he may have effectively purchased immunity from civil prosecution by showering money on the ever venal incoming President.
Given that Trump is not yet president, this may not count as outright bribery or a violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, but it certainly will raise some eyebrows, not that it matters (nothing matters). With the news cycle already “flooded with shit,” this corrupt sideshow will likely garner only passing interest.
Absurd Global Spectacle
Meanwhile, the New York Times tracked down the street vendor who sold the banana to Sotheby’s, who was probably parked just around the corner in Midtown. Shah Alam, the 74-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, was flabbergasted by the price and broke into tears.
When reporters dutifully reached out to Maurizio Cattelan for an update, he reported feeling fantastic. The auction had turned his piece into an even more “absurd global spectacle…the work becomes self-reflexive: The higher the price, the more it reinforces its original concept.”
Sounds quite a lot like a certain cryptocurrency teetering on $100,000 value, still cheaper than a banana duct-taped to the wall, if you were lucky enough to be in Miami in 2019 and get in on the ground floor.
The intended irony of Comedian, reiterated various times by Cattelan, seems entirely lost on Justin Sun. Long have we watched Sun skirt consequences for his globetrotting Tron charade. The smart money says Justin Sun will be stalking the doorway to the Oval Office, wheeling and dealing, and effectively immune from prosecution, within mere months.
Justin Sun said: “I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history.”
That’s true, but maybe not in the way he thinks.
Author: Laird Dilorenzo
#Crypto #Blockchain #DigitalAssets #DeFi
Laird Dilorenzo is a hatchet thrower and wordsmith.
The editorial team at #DisruptionBanking has taken all precautions to ensure that no persons or organizations have been adversely affected or offered any sort of financial advice in this article. This article is most definitely not financial advice.
