A cryptocurrency entrepreneur who identified himself as the buyer of a viral artwork depicting a yellow banana duct-taped to a wall said he will eat the fruit as part of a “unique artistic experience.

A banana duct-taped to a white wall — or an acclaimed piece of art, depending on how you look at it — sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $US6.24 ($A9.57) million on Wednesday. Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian is comprised simply of a banana stuck to the wall with a strip of silver duct tape and is hung exactly 160cm from the floor.

A piece of art that is little more than a banana duct-taped to a wall sold at auction for $6.2 million on Wednesday to cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, Sotheby's said, furthering the universal conversation about what constitutes art.

It was a banana with a back story. The spectacle on Wednesday evening, when a Sotheby’s auctioneer in Manhattan warned potential bidders not to let Maurizio Cattelan’s fruity artwork “slip away,” ended with a duct-taped banana selling for an astonishing $6.

Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” piece that features a banana duct-taped to a white wall, sold for millions at a Sotheby’s auction on Nov. 20.

Justin Sun, founder of the cryptocurrency platform TRON, bought a duct-taped banana artwork entitled “Comedian” for millions of dollars.