Thanks a lot for making the comparison. I think BTS's rise has been more modest because Ardor is part of an entire overhaul and repositioning of NXT: they're going after a market for "custom blockchains" (child chains) with Ardor-Nxt serving as the parent. The sharedrop adds value, certainly, but it doesn't fire up the imagination like the "New NXT!" has done.

Your comparison is valid in that BTS owners will have to hold their coins in their off-exchange wallets in order to guarantee their share of the shares, but the dynamics are different because Peerplays is selecting a random blocktime for the whole thing. Ardor, in contrast, is using a series of hour-by-hour snapshots over the entire distribution period.

The random-snapshot part makes the sharedrop a gamble, with odds. (For example, people who send their Bitshares to an exchange as of one day before the period ends have a ~93% chance of getting shares.) True, risk-averse folks will hold on until the period ends - but people who don't mind taking a little risk, won't.

From a pure handicapper's perspective, the gamble model suggests that BTS will peak on August 1st and slowly decline afterwards to reflect the diminishing probability of qualifying.

Of course, the market ain't rational in that way - so who knows what'll happen ;) It'll certainly be interesting to see how much of an effect that FOMO has!