The auction is oper for everyone as long you have the capability of meeting the required deposit amounting to $200,000.
Eh....yeah, I guess I won't be partaking in this particular auction. Nor would I really want to be buying bitcoin from the US government.
What is the point of bidding if you do it at market rate or above? For that you can simply go to an exchange...
I agree--it's not like there should be a premium for this particular batch of bitcoins. They're not collectibles. And I'm sure the government is going to make a nice profit from this, basically legally stealing from criminals. Meanwhile the rest of us are taxed to death. Grr.
No way could you obtain several thousand BTC in one go without risking driving the market batty. You could try it over a few days but even then others may notice strong and sustained buying and raise their sells.
I'd say if you were going to buy that amount of bitcoin, you'd have the patience to spread the buy orders out over more than a few days. People with lots of money do basically the same thing in the stock market all the time. It's certainly possible to buy thousands of bitcoins without moving the market much--I think it would just take patience and tons of cash.