Read funding like a pro.

What is funding rate and why does it matter for crypto traders?

Funding rate is the periodic payment exchanged between long and short traders in a perpetual futures contract. On Binance, Bybit, and OKX, funding is charged every 8 hours (at 00:00, 08:00, and 16:00 UTC). When funding is positive, longs pay shorts. When it is negative, shorts pay longs. The rate reflects the cost of holding a leveraged position, and it is one of the cleanest signals of market positioning available to retail traders.

How to read the funding heatmap

Our live funding heatmap aggregates real-time funding rates from the three largest perpetual futures exchanges. Each cell shows the current rate as a percentage per 8-hour window, color-coded from red (extreme positive, longs crowded) to green (extreme negative, shorts crowded). The screener lets you filter by exchange and sort by absolute magnitude, volume, or coin.

Cross-exchange arbitrage on funding rates

Funding rates often diverge between Binance, Bybit, and OKX. A trader can simultaneously long the contract with lower (or negative) funding and short the contract with higher funding, capturing the spread every 8 hours while holding a delta-neutral position. Our funding dashboard highlights the largest cross-exchange spreads in real time.

Open interest and liquidations as context

Funding rate alone tells you the cost of being in a position; open interest tells you the size. Rising open interest with rising price and rising funding signals a crowded long and a potential squeeze setup. Falling open interest with flat funding signals positioning is being unwound. We track open interest across Binance, Bybit, and OKX on the intelligence dashboard.

Fear and Greed Index as a contrarian signal

The Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index aggregates volatility, momentum, social media, surveys, dominance, and Google Trends into a single 0-100 score. Historically, extreme fear (below 20) has been a profitable buy zone on 30-90 day horizons, while extreme greed (above 80) has marked local tops. We surface the index in real time on the Fear and Greed page alongside 30 days of history.

Educational resources for derivatives traders

New to perpetuals? Start with the Funding 101 guide, which explains how funding is calculated, the difference between perpetual and quarterly futures, and the four most common trading strategies: mean reversion on extreme funding, trend-following on rising funding, cross-exchange arbitrage, and Fear and Greed divergence. For data sources and calculation methodology, see the methodology page.