Crypto futures premium: dated futures vs perpetual funding

Before perpetuals, every future had a date. Dated futures still trade on most of the big exchanges, and the site reads seven: Deribit by Coinbase, OKX, Bybit, Binance, Gate, Kraken and Coinbase. Each expiry has a price of its own, and the gap between it and the coin's index, as a rate a year, is the future's premium.

What is a dated future?

A dated future is a contract to buy or sell a coin at a price agreed now, on a date to come. At expiry it settles against its exchange's index: Deribit by Coinbase's, for one, against the average of its index over the half hour before 08:00 UTC. Until then it trades wherever buyers and sellers meet, above the index or below it, and the gap closes as the date comes: at expiry, the future is the index.

The premium a year

The site writes the gap as a rate a year, so that expiries a week and a year apart compare: the future's price over the index, less one, divided by the years left. Say a future is at $101 with the index at $100 and three months to go: 1% over a quarter of a year is 4% a year. The same 1% with a year to go would be 1% a year.

Each premium is the future's price at the middle of its book over its own exchange's index, so it compares like with like. A future above the index is in contango; below it, in backwardation.

Why it's mostly above zero

Buying a future instead of the coin leaves the money free until the date, to earn interest or back other trades, so the buyer pays for that time and the price sits above the index. Demand adds to it: traders who want a long with leverage bid futures up, and in a sell-off, when more want out than in, the premium can fall below zero.

Expiry by expiry, on three exchanges, the premiums a year might read:

Example figures, not market data.

Nearly flat across the expiries, and the exchanges close on each but the nearest, where a small difference in price is a larger one a year. Bitcoin's looked much like that on 14 October 2026: its futures for 25 December were at 5.57% a year on Deribit by Coinbase, 5.34% on OKX and 5.47% on Bybit, and every expiry to September 2027 between 5.28% and 6.47%.

Dated futures and perpetual funding

A perpetual has no date, so instead of meeting the index at expiry it pays funding: longs pay shorts while it trades above the index, and are paid while it's below (funding side by side). A perpetual's funding a year and a future's premium a year measure much the same thing, the price of holding a long. The difference is when it's set:

• A future's premium is set when you trade. Buy the coin and sell a future, and the premium is yours at expiry, whatever happens in between, as long as both legs are held. That's the cash-and-carry trade.
• A perpetual's funding floats. It's paid every hour, four hours or eight, and can change at every payment; the same trade with a perpetual collects whatever funding turns out to be (perpetual basis).

So the two say where a long is cheaper to hold. Say a future is at 5% a year and the perpetual's funding at 10%: for as long as funding stays there, the future is the cheaper way to hold a long, and the perpetual the better-paid short.

Why some premiums are left out

Close to expiry, a rate a year magnifies everything: two days out, a difference of 0.05% is 9% a year. On 14 October 2026, Gate's bitcoin future for 16 October came out at +123% a year and Bybit's at −25%, two days out; neither said anything about the market. So the site shows no premium within a week of expiry, and none where the book is too wide to pin the premium to a point a year.

How to read futures on the site

1. Open a coin's page, Bitcoin's or Ethereum's. Futures by expiry gives each exchange's premium a year for each expiry, and the Gap between the highest and the lowest, in points.
2. Weeklies and dailies adds the nearer expiries, where they're listed.
3. On the scoreboard, Dated futures exchanges sets each exchange's premiums against the middle of the others', over the expiries they share: Against the rest. Above zero, its futures trade dearer.
4. Compare the coin's funding on its perpetuals page.

What the premium leaves out

• The contract. Deribit by Coinbase's and OKX's bitcoin futures are margined in bitcoin and Bybit's in USDT, so the same premium carries different risks.
• Fees and the coin. A cash-and-carry pays to buy the coin and to sell the future, and ties up the whole amount.
• Coinbase's open interest. Its futures are compared, but its open interest can't be read from a browser, so it isn't counted.
• Time. It's now, and premiums move with the market.

Not financial advice. Prices move while you read them.