To me the difference is the @google.com email addresses at the top makes their intentions and motivations clear. It tells us that the authors were paid a salary

To me the difference is the @google.com email addresses at the top makes their intentions and motivations clear. It tells us that the authors were paid a salary by a known entity to do their research. Especially coming from Google, they get paid their plush SV salary either way if their project fails or becomes the next Gmail. The financial incentives around cryptocurrencies are different. Eminem just bought a link to a picture of a bored ape for 123 ETH ($450k USD). I'd love to read a neutral and rational explanation for the social and technical merits of that in a peer reviewed paper. Who would write such a thing who wasn't either selling their own NFTs or holding a shitload of ETH? Disclosure: I have a wallet with ~0.11 Ethereum that I mined myself a few years ago.