A recurring payment between long and short holders of a perpetual contract that keeps its price tethered to spot.
Last verified 13 September 2026 · written by the DexLadder team
What it means
A recurring payment between long and short holders of a perpetual contract that keeps its price tethered to spot.
Why it matters when you trade
Positive funding means longs pay shorts — the contract is trading above spot and the crowd is long. Negative means the reverse. Read as a cost it is a drag on carry; read as a signal it is a live crowding gauge, and extremes in it have preceded most violent unwinds, because the cost of holding the consensus trade eventually exceeds the conviction behind it.
Worked example
Funding at +0.05% per 8 hours is 0.15% a day, about 54% annualised, paid by longs merely to keep the position open.
See it on live markets
DexLadder runs funding rate against live market and pool data, with simulated capital, so you can watch it act on an order instead of reading about it — no account, no wallet, nothing installed.