Method.

The honest answer to how this site works.

Where the numbers come from

I pull funding rate data from a proprietary blend of APIs, supplemented by direct integrations with the exchanges I trade on most. The blend matters less than the discipline around it. I treat the source of every number as a fact about that number, not a detail to be hidden.

Some venues are pulled directly because I trade there and want the freshest possible data. Variational, Hyperliquid, and Lighter fall in this category. Others come through a third-party aggregator because the marginal cost of one more direct integration would exceed the analytical value. The data refreshes every 30 minutes, with the next refresh visible in the per-cell countdown on the funding grid.

I do not pull data from sources I do not understand. If a venue’s API returns something ambiguous, annualized versus per-period, percentage versus decimal, mark price versus index price, I verify against the venue’s own UI before storing it. This sounds obvious. It is not how most aggregators work, and it is the reason their numbers occasionally diverge from the venue’s display in ways that compound across downstream calculations.

[SCREENSHOT: example of the funding grid with the per-cell countdown visible]

Why I do not show APR by default

The default view on this site shows funding rates over a window you select. 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours, 1 day, 1 month, or 1 year. Most funding rate trackers default to annualized percentages. I do not, because the annualized number is fiction.

Funding rates are paid in discrete snapshots, typically every 1, 4, or 8 hours depending on the venue. The displayed rate is the rate as of the last snapshot. The realized rate at the next snapshot will be different. Always. Not sometimes, not usually on thin books and stable on majors. Always. Rates change between every snapshot on every asset on every venue, including BTC and ETH on the highest-volume CEXs. Sometimes the change is small. Sometimes it flips sign. It is never zero.

Annualizing a snapshot value to a year is a coordinate-system error. It assumes the rate you see right now will hold for 8,760 hours. The rate you see right now will not hold for 87 minutes.

Here is the math, briefly. A 0.01% rate over an 8-hour funding period works out to:

0.0001 × (8760 / 8) = 0.1095, or 10.95% APR

The 10.95% would be real if the rate stayed at 0.01% for an entire year. It will not. It will move within hours, sometimes within minutes, in response to positioning, news, and the next snapshot’s settlement.

What you actually want to know is what you will pay at the next snapshot, and what the rate has averaged over a few recent snapshots. Both numbers are smaller and less exciting than the annualized headline. Both are useful. The annualized headline is decoration.

[SCREENSHOT: a cell showing the rate in the selected window with the venue’s native interval in grey]

The clock that matters

Every funding rate has two times attached to it. The time the snapshot was taken, already in the past, and the time the next snapshot fires, coming up. The first time tells you how stale the displayed number is. The second time tells you how long you have before it gets paid and reset.

Each cell on the funding grid shows the venue’s native interval, 1h or 4h or 8h depending on the venue’s settlement clock, and a countdown to the next snapshot. Together these answer two questions. How much can this number move before payment, and when does payment fire.

This matters more than most traders realize. Two venues with similar-looking funding rates but different settlement intervals are not comparable. If Venue A settles in 5 minutes and Venue B settles in 3 hours and 55 minutes, the displayed rates have very different reliability as predictions of what will actually be paid. Venue A’s number is close to final. Venue B’s number is a starting estimate with hours of price action between it and settlement.

[SCREENSHOT: two cells side by side, one with a short countdown and one with a long countdown, illustrating the difference]

When the next snapshot is imminent and the displayed rate is meaningful, you have a real signal. When the next snapshot is hours away, you have a number that may or may not survive to payment.

When a spread is real

The funding grid lets you sort by cross-venue spread. The biggest spreads land at the top. This is also where the most misleading opportunities hide.

A spread between two venues at the same funding interval, say two CEXs both on 8-hour cycles, is comparing two rates that get paid on the same clock. The spread is mechanically tradeable, at least in principle, if you can put up margin on both sides and accept the fees.

A spread between venues at different intervals, say Hyperliquid at 1 hour against Bybit at 8 hours, is almost always a mirage. You are comparing a rate that gets paid in the next hour against a rate that gets paid sometime in the next eight. By the time both legs settle, the rates may bear no relationship to what you saw at entry.

[SCREENSHOT: spread sort active, caveat banner visible, with one large interval-mismatch spread at the top]

Variational is worth understanding specifically because its funding schedule isn’t a single value. Variational mirrors whichever centralized exchange has the deepest book for each asset. Most of the time that’s Bybit, occasionally Binance, very rarely something else. For the universe of assets Variational lists, this works out to roughly half the markets on 8-hour cycles (the majors and largest mid-caps), half on 4-hour cycles (the smaller alts), and a handful on 1-hour cycles where Bybit and Binance don’t list the asset at all. The interval shown next to each Variational cell is the actual venue schedule, pulled fresh from Variational’s API each cycle.

The site does not hide the interval-mismatch problem. Sort by spread and a caveat banner appears at the top of the grid explaining it. The biggest spreads are usually interval mismatches. The real spreads, the ones with two snapshots firing in roughly the same window, are smaller and less exciting. Those are the ones worth a closer look.

This is where the site’s editorial position diverges from the rest of the funding rate scanner industry. Other tools sort by headline magnitude because the largest numbers attract clicks. I sort by what is likely to be real, with the headline numbers still visible but accompanied by the context that makes them legible.

A spread is more likely to be real when both venues settle on similar intervals, open interest is meaningful on both sides, the spread has persisted across multiple recent snapshots rather than opening in the last hour, and both assets are mature listings rather than recent additions with thin order books. A spread is more likely to be a mirage when the intervals differ by a factor of 4 or 8, open interest is thin on at least one side, the spread just opened in the last cycle, or one or both listings are recent and the order book is still settling.

There’s a related but separate source of structural spread that’s worth knowing about. Different venues compute their funding rates using different oracle methodologies, with different constituent exchanges and different weighting rules. Two venues can disagree on funding rate even when they agree on price, because their underlying index price calculations weight the same spot venues differently. Most of the time this contributes only a few basis points of spread. Occasionally it explains a persistent gap that looks like an opportunity but is actually just two venues pricing the same asset slightly differently. The grid shows you the spread. You apply the filters in your head, or you stay alert to the ones you have not learned to filter yet.

How I classify venues

Every venue on this site carries a KYC tier label. The labels are color-coded on the funding grid as a small dot in each venue’s column header, and explained in the legend at the top of the longtail page.

The three tiers:

No KYC. Pure decentralized exchanges where you connect a wallet and trade. No identity verification required. Variational, Hyperliquid, Lighter, and a handful of others.

VPN-accessible. Centralized exchanges that block US users by IP but do not enforce identity verification for basic trading under certain daily volume thresholds. US traders routinely access these via VPN, often without ever completing KYC. This is a gray-area accessibility that exists in practice but violates the venue’s terms of service.

Restricted. Centralized exchanges with active enforcement against US users, where attempting to access via VPN risks account freeze and fund seizure. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken.

These classifications are my editorial judgment based on practical accessibility for US-based retail traders. They are not legal advice. They are not a guarantee that what works for one trader will work for another. Withdrawal-side compliance review can fire on any of these venues at any time, regardless of how the account was initially established.

Do your own research. Trade at your own risk. If you are unsure about the legality or terms-of-service implications of accessing any venue from your jurisdiction, consult the venue’s own documentation and a relevant professional. I display data from venues I do not personally recommend trading on because the cross-venue data is analytically useful. Displaying the data is not endorsement.

[SCREENSHOT: KYC legend at the top of the longtail page]

What this looks like in practice

A reader scanning the funding grid is looking at five things in each cell. The funding rate normalized to the window selected at the top. The venue’s native settlement interval in grey next to the rate. The countdown to the next snapshot in smaller grey text below. The KYC tier of the venue, encoded as a colored dot in the column header. The total open interest across visible venues in the OI column.

A reader interpreting that data is asking five things. Is the rate large enough to matter relative to my fee budget. Does the interval match the other venue I am considering. Will the next snapshot fire soon enough that this number is close to final. Can I actually access this venue without operational risk. Is the open interest deep enough to absorb my size without moving the book.

If the answers line up across both legs of a potential spread, you have something worth investigating. If they do not, you have a chart that looks more interesting than the underlying trade actually is.

The site’s job is to show you the data honestly. Reading it correctly is yours.

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For full disclosures, including referral relationships and any sponsored content arrangements, see the disclosures page.