NEW YORK – A week after a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur bought an artwork composed of a fresh banana stuck to a wall with duct tape for US$6.2 million (S$8.3 million) at auction, the man, Justin Sun, announced a grand gesture on the social platform X. He said he planned on purchasing 100,000 bananas – or US$25,000 worth of the produce – from the Manhattan stand where the original fruit was sold for 25 cents.

But at the stand at East 72nd Street and York Avenue, outside the Sotheby’s auction house where the conceptual artwork was sold, the offer landed with a thud against the realities of a New York City street vendor’s life.

It would cost thousands of dollars to procure that many bananas from a Bronx wholesale market, said Shah Alam, the 74-year-old employee from Bangladesh who sold the original banana used in Comedian, an absurdist commentary on the art world by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. And it would not be easy to transport that many bananas, which come in boxes of about 100.

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

“There’s not any profit in selling bananas,” Mr Alam said.

As an employee who makes US$12 an hour during 12-hour shifts, he 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,” Mr Sun wrote in a text message sent shortly after a stunt on Nov 29 when he ate the original banana during a news conference at a Hong Kong lu...