There was the study yesterday that showed that 70% of crypto trading was wash trading. I.e junk to inflate the appearance of the market. I see this being mostly zeros as effectively the same. It was meant to be found to be junk, to show how stupid it all is.
You don't ask for btc price X on coinbase versus btc price Y on biance? Wouldn't you just care about the price of btc? and if it rises on certain exchanges, then it would arbitrage until it rose on other exchanges as well?
More like the opposite. The fake price rise would be arbitraged away to match the real price.
At some point there has to be a real buyer/seller, otherwise arbitrage doesn't work. And a real buyer/seller is trading at the real price.
Not commenting on the general sentiment.
Specifically, what part of their methodology is not rigorous?
Given that a substantial chunk of the top tier exchanges have been caught and charged with wash trading (Bitmex, Coinbase), I think we already have quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to suggest it is likely an issue.