I'm in a very similar situation. I bought a cheap maxed out Mac mini M1 that powers on but just boots to the Apple sad face icon. I it won't even go in to the recovery menu and when I try to restore with Apple Configurator I get the same error "The System cannot be restored on this device. The System install could not be authorized for this device. The build may not be approved for production installs." Mine is a retail unit with model number A2348. It could be that the SSD has died?
Panicpants
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