What they discovered (as have others) are innumerable canceled quotes, which are the mechanism for price discovery. A bit more than wiggles on a graph.
1) Rapidly post/cancel trades, risking a fill. 2) ??? 3) Profit!
The ??? represent the part I don't understand.
(If you are actually interested, "quote stuffing" is typically the result of algorithms interacting in unexpected ways. It's not intentional or beneficial. I've spent weeks trying to reduce the amount of it.)
This only works because you don't actually have a "Sell at $X".