Now I'm wondering what the expected value is if you were to auction this button pressing opportunity. Intuitively it seems to be over $1m (and less than $25m) so if I'm right then that's better than pressing the red button.
Assuming there's no risk to payouts being made/no fraud/etc. then presumably yes. It's probably related to hedges against commodity price increases/ foreign exchange fluctuation, etc. Not quite the same thing but somewhat similar in principle.
Also made me think of the parallel universe to the show “Silicon Valley” where Richard Hendricks sells Pied Piper to Gavin Belson for like $10 million and happily retires in La Veta, Colorado.