Funding rate outliers: when one exchange stands apart

On most coins, most of the time, the exchanges' funding rates sit fairly close together: the same coin, the same mood in the market, and traders moving between exchanges to take the best rate. Now and then one exchange's rate stands far apart from the rest. That's an outlier, and the site finds them for every exchange, live, on each exchange's perpetuals page.

What is a funding outlier?

Take one coin's perpetuals on every exchange that lists them, and the middle of their funding rates, as yearly rates. An exchange's rate less that middle is how far it sits from the rest, in points a year: against the rest. A few points either way is ordinary. Tens of points is an outlier.

The site leaves the exchange itself out of the middle, so one far-off rate can't drag the middle toward it, and needs at least two other exchanges' rates on the coin before it says anything.

Why does one exchange's funding stand apart?

Each exchange's funding comes from its own traders (funding rates, side by side), so an outlier says something about that exchange's market for the coin:

• One side crowded there. If traders on one exchange pile into longs, its perpetual trades above the others' and its funding climbs, while elsewhere it doesn't.
• A small market. Where little is held open, a few large positions can move the rate a long way.
• A new listing. A coin that has just started trading on an exchange can run hot until enough traders arrive to take the other side.
• Different rules. Exchanges work funding out differently, cap it differently and pay it on different schedules, so in a fast market their rates can drift apart for a while.

How to find funding outliers on the site

1. Open the perpetuals scoreboard and click an exchange's name, or go straight to one: Hyperliquid's, for one.
2. Funding outliers here is the first card under its figures: up to six of its coins where its funding is furthest from the rest's, the furthest first.
3. Read each row: its own rate a year, the middle of the rest's, and the gap between them, against the rest.
4. Under each coin, Best other side names the exchange to pair it with: where its rate runs high, a short there and a long where funding is lowest; where it runs low, a long there and a short where funding is highest.

Example figures, not market data.

To compare whole exchanges rather than coins, the scoreboard's Against the rest column gives each one's median gap across all its perpetuals: whose funding usually runs above the rest's, and whose below.

Is an outlier a trade?

Sometimes. An exchange whose funding sits far above the rest is the best place to be paid for a short, and pairing it with a long where funding is lowest is the funding spread trade: the price moves cancel, and the difference in funding is what's left. An outlier below the rest works the other way round.

But an outlier is also a warning. A rate far above the rest means longs on that exchange are crowded and paying heavily, and crowded longs are the ones a falling price liquidates together (crypto liquidations explained). A rate far below means crowded shorts, the fuel of a short squeeze. And outliers rarely last: high funding draws in shorts, and low funding draws in longs, which pulls the rate back toward the rest.

What it leaves out

• How long it has lasted. It's the rate now. An exchange's perpetuals page lists each coin's 7-day average beside it, and a coin's page charts its funding history.
• Whether you can trade both sides. Some exchanges don't serve every country; check both ends of a pair.
• Costs. Opening and closing both legs pay spreads and fees, and each leg needs its own margin.
• Small markets. An outlier on a coin with little open interest may not take much size before it closes.

Not financial advice. Rates move while you read them.