If I were bidding, I would bid well above market, in order to help the cause by fostering optimism. Unless I was bidding with MY money, in which case I would think a bit more carefully about the idea.
This is an excellent point!
But... my point actually was that rich people generally did not become rich by investing in worthy but unprofitable deals...
By the way, looking at the charts of Bitstamp, BTC-e, Bitfinex, Huobi, and OKCoin, side by side, it is absolutely obvious that China is still setting the price alone, and the "West" is merely trying to follow, with delay and hysteresis (because of their fees). OKCoin not only has a lot more volume, but makes 10-30 transactions, including maybe a couple of crashes and rallies, while Bitstamp barely makes one.
And the Chinese don't seem to care much about the SR auction, or about those Western businesses that are "accepting bitcoin" (actually, accepting dollars from the sale of bitcoins by believers who decided to unload some of their holdings).
