It all depends on where you customers are - a lot of companies stick with Canada, so a .COM might not be a good investment. Others want to play in the worldwide market where a .COM is more than worth it.
It looks like BitBuy is a Canadian firm dealing with Canadians, so buying the .COM looks more like a brand protection strategy than anything else, at least right now.
This was way more than just a domain sale…it was a massive agreement. The company that is selling it manages a large domain name portfolio. Great deal for the company to make an agreement and get a piece of the pie for a domain name supposedly being used for the Australian market.