The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s anticipated verdicts on bitcoin spot ETF applications are now less likely to be a sell-the-news event after last week’s leverage shakeout, according to K33 Research.

K33 Senior Analyst Vetle Lunde and Vice President Anders Helseth previously expected traders to realize profits following the announcement with “snowballing long liquidations adding gasoline to the fire.” However, “the liquidation cascade on Jan. 3 drastically improved the state of the market,” and the impact of long liquidations is now less potent, they wrote.

Notional open interest in bitcoin perpetual contracts experienced a 12% decrease between Jan. 2 and Jan. 6, with funding rates moving to a neutral state. Since then, rates have maintained a consistent neutral level, …