How to read a funding rate
What the numbers in the table above mean, and how to read the gap between the two exchanges.
What a funding rate is
A perpetual future never expires. Without an expiry there is nothing pulling its price back toward spot, so exchanges use funding instead: when the future trades above spot, longs pay shorts at a fixed interval, and when it trades below, shorts pay longs.
The exchange does not keep this money. It moves between the traders holding the positions, which is why funding is both a cost of carry and a read on which way the market is leaning.
The figures here are annualized: the current rate projected out over a year. Rates rarely hold that long, so treat it as a comparison unit rather than a forecast.
Why two exchanges disagree
Each venue computes funding from its own book — its futures price against its own spot index. The same coin can carry a different crowd and a different lean on each, so the rates separate.
The wider that gap, the more the cost of holding a long on one venue differs from holding it on the other. That gap is the spread column, and it is the one number neither exchange puts on its own screen.
How to read the table
A positive rate means longs are paying shorts: the market is leaning long, and holding a long costs more the longer you hold it. A negative rate is the reverse.
Long accounts is the share of Binance accounts currently positioned long. Funding is a signal derived from price; this one is derived from headcount, which makes the cases where they disagree the interesting ones.
Values marked with a small circle sit exactly at the venue's baseline interest rate. The premium has collapsed to near zero and funding has converged to its default, so there is no directional signal in them.
Now that you know what the position costs to hold, work out where it stops being yours.
Open the liquidation calculator