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.

Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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

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.