I wonder if the 50k coin sale is factored into the current price or if people will panic sell 24 hours before the auction.
I think it'll cause a price drop in the short term.
Too many people haven't got the balls to hold through rough times.
The thing is this auction isn't even a particularly bad thing.
Certain people get swayed by the media & will sell cheaply & desperately.
Worst case if the winner/s lowball/s the auction - if they dump it on the market where would the price of bitcoin go? - providing they dump it among all the exchanges?
The infamous bearwhale dumped over 30k at $300 - might 50k fetch more or less.
Also if the winner wants to dump but holds off doing so will the market be afraid to move upward until the buyers intentions become known?
You are describing a scenario that is NOT too likely to happen.
For example, the last time had more than 30 bidders, and this time is likely NOT going to be too different. There will be a number of benevolent and bitcoin believers that are going to bid 5 to 10% above market price. Accordingly, any winning bid would have to bid at least 5 to 10% above market price.
Yes but the thing is last time tim draper got badly burnt with his strategy of buying above market - and additionally the 50k coins currently up for auction arent even the entire stash. theres even more to come... If I were a bidder I would lowball the first auction and see if there was a demand before bothering to pay above market -
I agree with some of your points regarding the factual scenario; however, I do NOT agree with your logic regarding ongoing motivations of likely bidders.
1) regarding the prior auction, we do NOT know for sure what the bid price(s) was; however, a reasonable inference is that Draper paid much higher than market value in order to be able to win all 10 lots of nearly 30k coins. Accordingly, the market price was then around $600, and he likely paid at least $650 per coin, and possibly close to $700 per coin.
2) draper and several of the bidders like him are long on bitcoin. Most likely, they would have preferred BTC prices to go up after the auction, yet I doubt that they are too concerned about the up and down prices of bitcoin, unless they come to conclude that BTC prices are NO longer able to go up. I think a lot of these well to do players in the bitcoin space (including guys like draper) have a sufficient degree of confidence in bitcoin that they can even likely on their own engage in a form of BTC price manipulation (to the upward direction) that will cause BTC prices to go well beyond $1k per coin. I believe that they just question when to push for such upward price direction b/c likely they would want to use market forces (and NOT only their own money) to assist in accomplishing the next BTC bubble (whether that takes place in the next month or even in the next year or two.
3) Yes agreed that it seems that there are going to be three auctions in about the 50k quantity in the near future... but only one of the auctions has been scheduled - so we cannot be 100% sure that the other two potential auctions will take place and if so when and/or how they would take place, if they were to occur. In that regard, I doubt that low balling the first auction will result in any kind of winning bid, b/c it seems to continue to be likely that the winning bids are going to be well over market price b/c there are a few true believers with plenty of money participating in the bidding process.
). You lost ~650$ already. Does it really matter if you loose another 100 (350->250) even 200 (350->150) per coin? You can not possibly loose more than what you already did, so you are technically "in the green" no matter what. Right? 
(I don't really think so, but some might argue so...)
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