Funding rates, annualised

Funding is quoted hourly, which makes it look trivial. Annualised, it is usually the largest cost of holding a perpetual position — and on some markets it exceeds any realistic edge. Positive means longs pay shorts.

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Most expensive to hold long

Longs are paid to hold these

Data from the public Hyperliquid API, retrieved 2026-08-11. Annualised figure assumes the current hourly rate persists, which it will not — treat it as a snapshot of current cost, not a forecast. Only markets above $1M of daily volume are shown.

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How to read this

A market at the top of the first table is one where traders are crowded long and paying heavily for the privilege. That is information about positioning, not about direction — crowded longs can keep being right for a long time. But it does tell you that a long position there starts with a meaningful headwind, and that the same trade expressed on spot would cost you nothing to hold.

The second table is the reverse: shorts are crowded and paying longs. This is where basis trades live — hold spot, short the perpetual, collect funding — though that requires capital on both sides and carries its own risks.

What funding actually is

A perpetual has no expiry date, which creates a problem: nothing forces its price to converge on the thing it is meant to track. Funding is the mechanism that solves it. Every hour, a payment passes directly between traders — not to the exchange. When the perpetual trades above its reference price, longs pay shorts, which makes holding long more expensive and holding short more attractive until the gap closes. When it trades below, the flow reverses.

Two consequences follow, and both are commonly missed:

• Funding is not a fee. If you are on the receiving side you are paid it. A short position in a market at the top of the first table is being paid, hourly, to exist.
• Funding is a positioning signal. A strongly positive rate means the crowd is long and paying to stay there. That is a real piece of information about who is already committed — though it says nothing reliable about what happens next.

Why the annualised number matters

An hourly rate of 0.01% reads as nothing. Multiplied by 24 hours and 365 days it is over 80% a year. That is the entire reason this table exists: hourly quoting makes an enormous cost look like a rounding error, and traders routinely enter multi-month positions in markets where funding alone will exceed any realistic gain.

The annualised column assumes the current rate persists, which it will not — funding moves constantly with positioning. Treat it as an answer to "what is this costing me right now, in units I can compare to anything else," not as a forecast. For a position you intend to hold for months, the honest comparison is against the expense ratio of an ETF covering the same exposure, which is typically well under 1% a year.

When funding makes a trade not worth doing

The practical test is simple. Estimate how long you expect to hold and what move you expect. If annualised funding over that holding period consumes a large share of the expected move, the instrument is wrong for the thesis even if the thesis is right.

This is the most common way a correct view loses money on a perpetual. Someone is right that gold goes up over six months, holds through 60% annualised funding, and ends up behind where they would have been holding an ETF. The view was fine. The vehicle was not. Ourmarket guides cover the alternative routes for each asset, andthe fees page explains where funding sits relative to everything else you pay.