Crypto Funding Rates

A crypto funding rate is the recurring payment that traders on a perpetual swap send to each other to keep the contract's price in line with the spot market. A perpetual future never expires, so there is no settlement date to force the two prices together. Funding does that job instead: when the contract trades above spot the rate turns positive and longs pay shorts, and when it trades below spot the rate turns negative and shorts pay longs.

The gap the rate is correcting is called the basis — the distance between the perpetual's mark price and the underlying spot index. Exchanges measure it with a premium index sampled continuously through each funding interval, so the published rate reflects an average of that premium rather than a single snapshot. Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetuals account for most of the volume behind these payments.

No. In the Current view every number is the percentage charged for a single funding interval — most exchanges settle every 8 hours, some every 4 or 1 hour. Hover any cell to see that market's funding interval, a countdown to the next payment and the annualized equivalent. The 1D, 7D, 30D and 1Y views show funding accumulated over that period instead.

Funding rates are collected from more than 20 perpetual futures venues, including Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, MEXC, KuCoin, BingX, HTX, Hyperliquid, Kraken, Coinbase and dYdX. Not every exchange lists every coin, so some cells in the matrix are intentionally empty.

The stat cards, heatmap and funding matrix refresh about once a minute, and the funding rate history chart every few minutes, so the page stays close to what each exchange is publishing in real time.

It is an open-interest-weighted average across the top coins, so markets with more capital at risk carry more weight than thin ones. A positive average means longs are paying shorts across the market as a whole; a negative average means shorts are paying longs.

Stablecoin-margined contracts are collateralized and settled in a stablecoin such as USDT or USDC, while token-margined (also called coin-margined) contracts use the underlying coin itself as collateral. The two often trade at different funding rates, which is why they have separate toggles above the table.

Funding is exchanged directly between traders and never collected by the venue. At the end of each funding interval — 8h on most exchanges, 4h or 1h on some — every open position pays or receives the rate multiplied by its position value. Holding a position through settlement is what triggers the payment; opening and closing between intervals costs nothing.

Because the rate is quoted per interval, the headline number looks small. The 0.01% 8-hour rate most venues use as a baseline compounds to roughly 10.95% annualized (APR) if it holds. The Current tab above shows the per-interval figure, and hovering any cell reveals that market's funding interval, a countdown to the next payment and the annualized equivalent.

A positive funding rate means longs pay shorts. It says leveraged demand sits on the long side and the perpetual is trading at a premium to spot. A negative rate reverses the flow: shorts pay longs, the contract trades at a discount, and bearish leverage is the crowded side of the book.

The size of the payment matters as much as its sign. Rates that stay far above the 0.01% baseline for days mark a stretched imbalance, and the traders paying to hold that position are the most exposed if price turns — which is why funding extremes and crypto liquidations so often arrive together.

Every venue runs its own order book, index and premium calculation, so the same coin can carry a different rate at each one. A Binance funding rate is computed from Binance's own premium index and capped by Binance's own limits, while OKX, Bybit and Hyperliquid publish theirs on separate schedules. Comparing the funding rate by exchange in the matrix above is the fastest way to see where leverage is concentrated.

Collateral type splits the picture further. Stablecoin-margined (linear) contracts are settled in USDT or USDC, token-margined (inverse) contracts are settled in the coin itself, and the two frequently diverge on the same venue. Use the margin toggle to switch between them, and see our crypto exchanges pages for venue-level volume and market data.

Funding is one of the cleanest reads on derivatives market sentiment because it prices leverage directly. The OI-weighted average at the top of this page shows which side the market as a whole is paying to hold: a persistently positive reading is a crowded long, a persistently negative one a crowded short.

Read it alongside price and positioning rather than on its own. Rising prices with cooling funding are healthier than rising prices with funding at an extreme, and a sharp flip from positive to negative usually follows a flush of leverage. Pair the bitcoin funding rate with BTC dominance and open interest to judge whether a move is spot-led or leverage-led.