Here’s my take:
The domain aftermarket has a big problem… it exists. This market shouldn’t ever be allowed to exist in the first place. ICANN should’ve blocked this bullshit a long time ago and forced registrars to just let domains expire and free the space. Also add a few provisions about unused domain names and about selling them.
Maybe it isn’t another person, it’s more likely to be your registrar holding the domain to sell on auction later on. This is the typical GoDaddy behaviour.
I’m using Namecheap but I have had this suspicion that they’re the ones holding it this time. If I could confirm that it would definitely have me looking for another registrar. That feels like it should be against ICANN rules.