Either BFL cashing out some coin, or they suckered some poor fool. Or maybe, all of BFL's so called regular customs just got the shaft big time as a big order like that is going to get special treatment at the cost of smaller orders.
I'm sure BFL is liquidating some of the massive bitcoins they've mined... Think about it - BTC is hovering at a premium right now. Its what I would do.
If someone was going to pay BFL a million dollars for hardware, they wouldn't do it through a third party payment processor, lol. They would have a meeting, agree on terms, sign contracts, and pay them - either BTC or fiat - directly. This makes no sense except for BFL turning their bitcoins into dollas, while generating some good publicity while they are at it.
No matter what the btctalk community may think of BFL - they are not idiots over there. They are actually very good at the things they are good at. And where they suck, they suck (customer service, mainly). I understand the optimism, the thought 'nothing at this point can go wrong', all of the little things that get in the way of producing something for the first time... But i dont understand how they could be so unapologetic about it. Wouldnt have cost them a dime to just have been nice this whole time, instead of being the way theyve been.