Cause of declining trade sizes in successive rsyncsearcher iterations

Determine the underlying cause of the observed decline in the median trade size across successive iterations of the rsyncsearcher non-atomic arbitrage smart contracts operating on Ethereum decentralized exchanges, and clarify whether this decline reflects a strategic shift toward smaller, less contested arbitrage opportunities as hypothesized by the authors.

Background

The paper analyzes non-atomic arbitrage activity on Ethereum decentralized exchanges and profiles the behavior of major arbitrage searchers, including several labeled as rsyncsearcher. In examining trade-size distributions (Figure ref: fig:tradeSizebyBot), the authors observe distinct patterns for rsyncsearcher accounts and note a consistent decline in their median trade size across successive iterations.

While discussing this trend, the authors explicitly acknowledge uncertainty about its cause and conjecture that it may indicate a strategic shift toward smaller, less contested arbitrage opportunities, but they do not resolve the question. This leaves open the task of determining the drivers behind the change in trade-size behavior for rsyncsearcher iterations.