Burning Bitcoin wasn't very costly back then, given the prices of the time. However, it's not wise to make this move now. It's very likely that it was an erroneous transaction.
Maybe that was just a birthday gift from someone for reaching another level of survival of Bitcoin. That gift benefits us all who hodl Bitcoin.
They need a lot of money to do that and if they just throw that money then they are only hurting their selves financially since no people would buy what they are doing. IF they could just sell that on exchange and cash out for sure there's a lot things to use that. But if they really intentionally do that then they must be totally crazy for thinking that they can influence people for doing the same action just what they did.
But anyways I'm still doubting if the owner do that intentionally and I maybe believe that that is mistakenly sent since no insane people will burn his $1m" worth of money just because they don't like to have it.
As a normal BTC investor, they are also planning to sell their coins on the exchanges once they think they are profiting already but too bad it won't ever happen. . If it's intentional, only crazy people will indeed follow the same action. What will they get when they do that anyway? LoL . We can only wish it came to the poor BTC users and they can use the money wisely, but they can be kind enough to return it to their rightful owners.