It doesn't even look like that at all, the "early adopter" coins in question are the ones sent to 12higDjoCCNXSA95xZMWUdPvXNmkAduhWv.

Seems weird to me to assign that particular party to Satoshi: the earliest of the connected blocks was mined a week after Bitcoin's public announcement... and it aggregated up all that coin in a single address, in a pretty decidedly non-anonymous way.

What it looks like to me is that party sent a bunch of funds to an early exchange (perhaps Britcoin, based on the date), and presumably the at that point they changed ownership.

Again, I'm confused and disappointed. Like the first from these authors this paper seems really seems second rate, not well researched— even about the operations of Bitcoin, and rather high on soundbite-grade speculation compared to substance.