Man who bought $6m Banana offers to buy 1,00,000 more from original Bangladeshi vendor in NY

The saga of the $6.2 million conceptual artwork "Comedian" by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall, continues to grab global headlines, with new twists.

The Chinese entrepreneur Justin Sun, who bought the artwork over a week ago, ate the fruit and also offered a much bigger payday to Shah Alam, a 74-year-old Bangladeshi migrant worker who sold the original fruit for the artwork for only 25 cents, reports The Seattle Times.

In a grand gesture on X, Sun announced a plan to purchase 100,000 bananas — or $25,000 worth of the produce — from the Manhattan fruit stand at East 72nd Street and York Avenue, outside the doors of the Sotheby's auction house, where the artwork was sold.

However, the offer landed with a thud against the realities of the life of street vendor Shah Alam, who merely works at the fruit stand.

It would cost thousands of dollars to procure that many bananas from a Bronx wholesale market and it wouldn't be easy to move that many bananas, which come in boxes of about 100, said Shah Alam.

And then there is the math: The net profit from the purchase of 100,000 bananas by Justin Sun — who once bought a nonfungible token of a pet rock for more than $600,000 — would be about $6,000, he said.

"There's not any profit in selling bananas," Alam added.

As an employee who makes $12 an hour during 12-hour shifts, Alam pointed out that any money would by rights go to the fruit stand's owner, not him.

"I am not personally familiar with the exact cost of the bananas," the Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sun wrote in a text message sent shortly after a stunt Friday where he ate the original banana during a news conference at a Hong Kong luxury hotel. 

"Through this event, we aim not only to support the fruit stand and Mr Shah Alam but also to connect the artistic significance of the banana to everyone," Sun said. 

Reached by phone, the stand's owner, Mohammad R Islam, 53, who goes by Rana, said he would split any profit between himself, Alam and the six other people he employs at his two fruit stands. No one had contacted him about any such purchase, though, he said.

Islam had learned from a reporter of Sun's plans, which included offering the bananas from Islam's stand worldwide, free to anyone who showed identification, according to Sun's post on X.

There are other, quieter efforts to support the vendor. At least two online fundraisers have collected more than $20,000 for Alam.

Working in the rain on Thanksgiving Day, Islam's brother, Mohammad Alam Badsha (who is not related to Alam) said he would welcome the bulk purchase. But it would have little tangible impact, Badsha said, either on the daily life of the fruit vendors or on the gulf laid bare by the $6.2 million banana and the stand that sold it for a quarter.

"It's definitely an inequality," Badsha said in Bengali.

He added a Bangladeshi idiom: It was, he said, the difference between heaven and hell.