Cheapest perp venue to hold a position, live funding normalized
Funding cost in basis points to hold a long position for 24 hours at the current rate, normalized across venues that settle funding on 1 hour, 4 hour and 8 hour periods. Negative means longs get paid.
Read this carefully
Funding is signed. Positive means longs pay shorts, negative means longs get paid to hold. Venues settle on different native periods (1h for Hyperliquid and dYdX, 4h or 8h elsewhere); every figure is normalized from the venue's own quoted rate and interval before ranking. Funding is only the holding cost. Opening costs (taker fee, spread, impact) are the companion bench perp-fees.
This page answers one question. On which perp venue is it cheapest, right now, to hold a position once it is open. Perpetual futures charge funding between longs and shorts to keep the contract pinned to spot, and on a position held for hours or days this funding flow usually dwarfs the opening fee. Comparing it across venues is genuinely hard because everyone quotes a different native period: Hyperliquid and dYdX settle every hour, Binance and Bybit quote per 8 hours with some pairs moved to 4 hours, OKX, Paradex and Aster quote per 8 hours. A raw rate comparison is meaningless. The bench polls each venue's public funding endpoint every minute, reads the venue's own settlement interval alongside the rate, normalizes everything to a per hour basis, and ranks venues by the cost in basis points of holding a $1,000 ETH long for 24 hours at the current rate, with BTC and SOL columns, annualized equivalents and 7 and 30 day averages for the carry trade perspective. Negative numbers mean the long side is being paid to hold. Funding spreads between venues are the raw material of the funding arbitrage trade: short the perp where funding is most positive, long it where it is most negative or hold spot, and collect the difference.
Methodology
The bench polls the public funding endpoint of seven perpetual venues every 60 seconds: Hyperliquid (metaAndAssetCtxs), Binance and Aster (premiumIndex plus fundingInfo for per pair intervals), Bybit (v5 tickers plus instruments-info), OKX (public funding-rate, interval derived from settlement timestamps), dYdX v4 (indexer perpetualMarkets) and Paradex (markets summary). For each venue and each of BTC, ETH and SOL it records the quoted rate and the venue's native settlement interval, then publishes Prometheus gauges normalized to a per hour basis: rate per hour in bps, cost to hold a long for 24 hours in bps, and the annualized percentage. Sign is preserved everywhere, positive means longs pay shorts. The 7 day and 30 day figures are time averages of the normalized series, so they reflect what holding actually cost over the window rather than a single snapshot. A venue that fails to respond keeps its previous values and its freshness timestamp goes stale, which the reliability column surfaces.
Frequently asked
What does this benchmark measure?
The funding cost of holding a perp long, normalized across venues. Headline ranking is the cost in basis points of holding a $1,000 ETH long for 24 hours at the current rate, averaged over the last 24 hours. BTC and SOL columns, annualized equivalents and 7d/30d averages are alongside. Positive means longs pay shorts, negative means longs get paid to hold.
What is a funding rate?
Perpetual futures never expire, so to keep the contract price pinned to spot, the side that is crowding the trade periodically pays the other side. When perps trade above spot, longs pay shorts; below spot, shorts pay longs. The payment is the funding rate, charged on position notional at each settlement.
Why does normalization matter?
Venues quote funding for their own settlement period: Hyperliquid and dYdX per hour, Binance and Bybit per 8 hours with some pairs on 4 hours, OKX, Paradex and Aster per 8 hours. Comparing quoted rates directly overstates hourly venues by 8x. This page divides every rate by its venue's interval first, so all columns share a per hour time base.
What does a negative number mean?
The long side is being paid to hold. Funding is a transfer between traders, not a fee to the venue, so when shorts crowd the book the sign flips and holding a long becomes income. The ranking treats negative as cheapest.
What is funding rate arbitrage?
Collecting the spread between venues or against spot. The classic carry: hold spot (or a long where funding is negative) and short the perp where funding is most positive; each settlement pays you the difference without directional exposure. The 7d and 30d columns show whether a spread persists long enough to cover execution costs.
Why is the 24h average the headline instead of the live rate?
The instantaneous rate can spike for a single settlement and revert. A position opened 24 hours ago paid the average, not the snapshot, so the headline is avg_over_time over 24 hours of one minute samples. The Per-hour rate tab shows the live normalized rate if you want the snapshot.
Why are GMX and Lighter not in the cohort?
GMX prices borrowing per side against pool utilization; there is no funding rate comparable to the order book venues, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Lighter publishes funding data but the interval semantics of its public endpoint are not documented; it joins once its numbers can be normalized with confidence.
How fresh are these numbers?
The harness polls every venue in parallel every 60 seconds and Prometheus scrapes every 30 seconds, so figures are at most about two minutes behind the venue APIs. A venue that stops responding keeps its last values and its Success column turns red after five minutes.
Can I cite a value from this page?
Yes. Every number is a Prometheus query over gauges the open source harness publishes from public venue endpoints. Cite the value and the timestamp at the top of the page; the harness source link is in the source field below.
Source code github.com/ChainBench/OpenChainBench/tree/main/harnesses/hyperliquid-frontends