They say there’s no such thing as bad press, but even the publicity-seeking crypto entrepreneur and billionaire art collector Justin Sun doesn’t seem to think so. 

Sun shelled out $6.2 million for Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the notorious artwork that consists of a banana duct-taped to a wall, at Sotheby’s in November. It added to his holdings of works by artists like Alberto Giacometti, KAWS, Murat Pak, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol. He then ate the banana at a high-profile press conference.

But he reportedly pressured crypto trade publication CoinDesk (via CoinDesk’s owner, Bullish) to remove an article by Callan Quinn that expressed skepticism about the piece, titled “I Watched Justin Sun Eat the World’s Most Expensive Banana. I Don’t Get It.”

“After Sun’s team complained about the tone of the piece, CoinDesk’s owners, the crypto exchange Bullish, demanded editorial staff remove it from the publication’s website, according to sources familiar with the matter,” reports Fortune, which also reported that ex-Wall Street Journal editor in chief Matt Murray left his position as chair of an editorial committee—one that apparently included Murray alone among its membership—in December.

The December 2 article was removed from the CoinDesk website, but an archived version of the piece still appears online.

Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian after being eaten by Noh Huyn-soo and taped back on the wall at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul. Photo courtesy of Noh Huyn-soo.

Emails to Bullish, CoinDesk, Quinn, and Sun requesting comment on this matter were not immediately answered. 

Quinn’s article described the press conference—as well as, arguably, Comedian itself and all the hoopla surrounding it—as “ridiculous.” He reported that some in the crowd characterized Sun’s performance as a “marketing gimmick.” The article noted a fraud lawsuit against Sun by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and pointed out that Sun and Tron have threatened to sue publications reporting on the “growing popularity” of the Tron blockchain with Islamic terror groups.

Bullish bought CoinDesk from Digital Currency Group in 2023 for about $75 million. The publication won a George Polk Award for its coverage of the FTX exchange, which led to its collapse, resulting in prison time for founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and has been profiled by the New York Times, CNN, New York Magazine and other outlets. 

After reading a popular New York Times article that described Shah Alam, the down-and-out fruit stand staffer who sold the banana to Sotheby’s for a quarter and was baffled and upset by the price it made at auction, Sun declared that he wanted to “thank” the vendor by buying 100,000 bananas from the stand. Alam does not own the stand, so it’s unclear how he would profit.

Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker overseeing the bidding for Maurizio Cattelan, Comedian (2019) at Sotheby’s on November 20, 2024. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Sun made headlines again shortly thereafter, when he invested some $30 million in Donald Trump’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, and joined its board as an advisor. Trump has promised a pro-crypto presidency, and crypto advocates spent big money on political candidates advocating for more lenient regulations. 

Sun has staged a number of stunts to advocate for the new form of currency. In 2019, he paid $4.6 million at a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett, hoping to change the mega-investor’s mind about crypto, which Buffett called “probably rat poison squared,” among other colorful critiques. In a blockchain-based election this past October, Sun became the prime minister and speaker of Congress of the self-proclaimed micro-nation of Liberland, in Eastern Europe.