Sotheby's is about to auction the abstract art piece "Comedian", created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which features a banana taped to a wall.
Just a few weeks ago, Sotheby's vice president Michael Bouhanna created the meme coin $BAN based on this, immediately attracting crypto funds, and its market cap surged to $50 million within 18 hours, and has continued to rise since then.
Musk Shares Banana Photo
This morning, "Dogecoin Father" Musk even reposted a photo on X of Polaris (a private space exploration program supported by SpaceX) content director John Kraus holding a giant banana in front of the SpaceX Starship, which quickly sparked a rapid response in the crypto community, with many comments tagging $BANANA and $BAN, and the prices of both tokens immediately rose.
Banana-Related Tokens Surge
Dexscreener data shows that $BAN surged from around $0.2 to $0.2508, a 25.4% increase, within an hour of Musk's repost, approaching the historical high of $0.292 set 14 days ago. As of the time of writing, it is temporarily reported at $0.2236, up over 40% in the last 24 hours, with a market cap of $218 million.
In addition, the token $BANANA, which shares the same name as the banana, may also have been affected by this and risen in price. This token is the native token of the Banana Gun bot, and its price has risen rapidly since Musk's repost, closing at $59.52 before the deadline, up 8.3% in the last 24 hours.
Beware of Comedian Auction Crash Risk
However, it should be noted that "Comedian" will be auctioned at Sotheby's in New York on November 20, and there is a need to be wary of the risk of a major crash after the auction. If there is no new narrative support afterwards, it may ultimately end up in a "good news is bad news" scenario.
Just as the market cap of the largest meme coin $TRUMP, which peaked on the day of Trump's election victory, has since fallen from $210 million to around $70 million, a drop of over 66%.
$PNUT Surges Over 4x in a Day
In addition to being known as the "Dogecoin Father", Musk is also about to lead the "Government Efficiency Department" (abbreviated as DOGE), which could bring more exposure to Dogecoin. Before the election, he also used the squirrel "Peanut" being euthanized as a criticism of the Democratic Party, and posted a tribute to Peanut, claiming that Trump's election would save more lives like Peanut's. This "Peanut storm" has gradually evolved into a campaign against the Democratic Party, and the related token $PNUT has also attracted high attention from the market.
On the 13th, when Musk responded to a netizen's question about the necessity of the "Government Efficiency Department", he said: "America was saved by a squirrel and a meme coin." This statement pushed the market cap of $PNUT from around $500 million to $2.27 billion in a single day, an increase of over 4 times.
As of the time of writing, the market cap is still $1.745 billion, with the current price at $1.74, up 11.3% in the last 24 hours.
