It could be as simple atm as a test on beta to see how high they can start the bids on various items and still get auctions. Jacking the starting price up later is likely to meet with even more backlash than starting high and lowering the starting bid once they see what people will happily pay 1M+ for and even fight over and what will just go ignored.A better use of dynamic pricing would be to start the minimums out lower to get some activity then raise them for subsequent auctions based on the results of the previous auction. A few player may get "bargains" but it would be a heck of a lot better than having everyone sit on the bench and refuse to place tie first bid.
If the opening bid starts low we get the same behavior that had me largely ignore auctions even when I wanted some stuff from them before recent power creep made the items irrelevant - people with lots of coins waiting til the last minute to bid +1. At least with a hefty starting price you know you have to raise more capital before entering the auction and the auction barons have to pay substantially for whatever it is they're winning (and therefore decide what isn't worth paying for). "Wait 2 hours and try to get a deal" was not engaging auction gameplay.
They could fix the auctions another way by allowing players to use a bidding agent to set their maximum bid and *not* have to show up at the precise time the auction's ending to get a deal.
But if they're going to keep the stupid last-30 seconds +1 coin is raise-enough auction style, then at least minimums that mean something removes some of the undesirable behavior by ruling out "win every auction noone else wants".