I know what happened, but it's a misuse of the downvote. The downvote is intended for the community to regulate payout to an appropriate value. This was basically @grumpycat saying my content wasn't worth $5. You can't use a downvote the way @grumpycat is using it. It breaks the system equally as bad as voting bots.

Further, from my own investigation I can tell the following:

• @grumpycat places bids on 6th day voting bots
• Even if your voting bot is 3.5 or less, you can still get hit by @grumpycat since this happened to @brandonfrye

So I have to disagree with you. I think personally, the best way to keep this from happening again is to get the community to shut down @grumpycat.