Funding rate
Periodic payments between long and short traders that keep a perpetual future tethered to spot price.
Perpetual futures never expire, so exchanges use a funding rate to anchor them to the underlying spot price. When the perp trades above spot, longs pay shorts; when it trades below, shorts pay longs. Payments typically settle every eight hours.
Funding is a sentiment signal as well as a cost. Persistently high positive funding means the crowd is aggressively long and paying for the privilege — often a sign of crowded positioning worth respecting.
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