Perpetual futures pay a periodic funding rate between longs and shorts to keep the perp price tethered to spot. Positive funding: longs pay shorts. Negative: shorts pay longs. The Funding mode turns that payment into a search axis — it ranks coins by how much you can earn from funding while staying delta-neutral, i.e. with no bet on which way the price goes.
This is different from the Current/Daily modes: there you trade a price spread that closes; here you hold a position for the funding income, for as long as the rate stays favourable. The spread between the two legs is just the cost of getting in.
The two strategies
- A — Spot + Perp (one exchange): when funding is positive, buy the coin on spot and short the same size on the perp. You hold no net price exposure and collect the funding every period. When funding is negative the clean version flips to long perp + short spot, which needs a margin/borrow on the spot — harder for retail, so those cards are ranked lower and flagged.
- B — Perp ↔ Perp (two exchanges): short the perp with the higher funding and long the perp with the lower (or negative) funding on another exchange. You earn the difference between the two rates, delta-neutral across the two perps.
APR and the funding interval
Exchanges pay funding at different intervals — every 8h, 4h or 1h. The same 0.01% per period is eight times more income at 1h than at 8h, so every figure is normalised to an annualised rate: APR = rate × periods-per-day × 365. The headline number on each card is that APR.
Break-even and basis
Opening and closing both legs costs taker fees; the card shows how many days of funding it takes to cover them. It also shows the entry basis — the price gap between perp and spot you cross to enter, paid once.
Funding history & stability
A high funding rate right now is not the same as a reliable one. The 7-day history chart and the “sign stability” figure (the share of the last week the funding kept the same sign) tell a sustained yield apart from a one-off spike. Prefer a high, stable APR over a fleeting extreme.
Funding is an estimate of forward yield from the current rate; it changes and can flip each period. The short perp leg uses margin and can be liquidated if the position is not funded — keep a buffer. Extreme APRs (hundreds of percent and up) are usually illiquid or stressed coins. Not financial advice.