[SRTP]

Those 2 charts the author cites describe different things: the Ethereum chart shows _cumulative_ amount of BTC raised over time, while the Swarm chart shows BTC raised per block.

Furthermore, the author's argument that observing a power law distribution is an argument in favor of the Ethereum pre-sale being participated in by "one or very few hands" shows that his understanding of basic statistical concepts is lacking.

Observing a power law distribution is an argument in favor of many, many participants. This is what we see in nature when looking normally distributed variables among large populations.

Stick to law, Preston.

[pjbyrne]

You must not remember how small the Ethereum universe was in 2014. If you think that curve is the outcome of an organic market process, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

[SRTP]

I was actively involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem when the ETH pre-sale launched. I'd argue that the majority of pre-sale participants were BTC holders. That group was not small in 2014.

Also, look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_distribution_functi...

[pjbyrne]

All of the pre-sale participants were BTC holders because that is the only currency the Foundation accepted for presale Eth.

The question is how many of those BTC holders there are and whether presales/ICOs usually follow that pattern. Most don't, they use all their powder in the beginning (there's no Indian summer surge of donations towards the end of the sale). Even when they do it is not as pronounced as here. That's what makes the curve weird.

[drcode]

This is totally wrong: Since there was no "upper limit" on total cap of ether in the presale there was a significant incentive in waiting until the last minute to benefit from additional information (i.e. to know what percentage of ETH supply you were bidding on) and similarly to withhold bid info from competitors- This was partially offset by a gradual decline in ETH/USD exchange rate set by the presale terms.

It seems pretty clear that you haven't studied the mechanisms of these sorts of crypto auctions, since you are ignoring a lot of the underlying complexity and the many differences between different auctions in practice, or you have forgotten a lot of the intricacies of this particular auction. (which may have been a good or bad design in this case, both cases can be made.)

If you think it's common for actors in an auction system to "use all their powder in the beginning" unless there's a explicit reward for bidding late then you've clearly never been a victim of ebay bid sniping LOL

[pjbyrne]

I've updated the post to include a chart of the Tezos raise, which was both much larger than the Eth raise and I think illustrates my point rather well.

[drcode]

So I'll grant you that the differences in the smoothness in the ethereum vs tezos charts is interesting, but your argument is still unconvincing to me for two reasons: First of all, you're basically saying "The ethereum graph is so perfectly what you'd expect from an ideal auction that it can't possibly be ideal" which is the sort of argument that requires more convincing evidence. Secondly, the Tezos auction had many differences in the auction design from the ethereum auction, which could be a more mundane reason for differences in these curves.

...also, I feel like you still need to explain more explicitly why bidders making purchases in multiple lots is a nefarious thing- Does the argument just boil down to saying there were too many big fish, which means that ethereum may not be "decentralized" and therefore a security? If allowing arbitrary people to make their own purchasing decisions on an asset is not adequately decentralized, then it seems you've defined "decentralized" to the point where no asset could ever reach your threshold to fall under that definition.