[long]

I think the abstract does effectively say that: "these patterns are most consistent with the supply‐based hypothesis of unbacked digital money inflating cryptocurrency prices." And this point is made more forcefully in the paper.

FWIW, I don't have a strong opinion on the evidence presented in the paper -- the analyses seem sensible, but this isn't my field of expertise, so I'd be hard pressed to point out, for example, what alternative analyses they could / should have done.

Also, it's not even obvious to me that unbacked Tether causing the BTC price rallies is necessarily a reason to pull out; markets are weird.