Funding Rate Arbitrage: Live Cross-DEX Spreads, Fee Maths and Break-Even

1. How funding rate arbitrage works

A perpetual future has no expiry, so exchanges keep its price near spot with funding: a payment between longs and shorts on the full position value. When the perp trades above spot (or sits at the positive baseline) the rate is positive and longs pay shorts; when it is negative, shorts pay longs. Funding is peer-to-peer, so the rate is the whole income; the formula and caps are in crypto funding rates explained.

The math. Put both rates on the same interval first: Hyperliquid and Lighter quote an hourly rate (× 8 for 8 hours), Aster quotes per payment (× 8 ÷ its interval), edgeX pays every 4 hours (× 2), and Binance BTC pays every 8 hours. Then:

daily income = notional × (rate received − rate paid) × 3
fees = 2 × notional × (fee on leg 1 + fee on leg 2)
break-even days = fees ÷ daily income

Two consequences follow. Leverage does not raise the income, because funding is charged on notional; it only lowers the margin you post and moves each leg closer to liquidation. And the baseline 0.01% per 8 hours (10.95% a year) is the floor most liquid markets sit on, so a spot + perp carry on a calm major earns about that, before fees.

Related:Crypto Risk Management for Perp Traders: Rules & Checklist

2. Live funding rates on five venues (8-hour basis)

Current rates on Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, edgeX and Binance, all converted to an 8-hour basis, as of October 20, 2026, 03:53 UTC. The top rows are the majors; below them, the five coins with the widest spread among Hyperliquid perps with more than $5M of 24-hour volume. In each row the highlighted cells are the pair: short the highest rate, long the lowest. A leg with less than $1M of 24-hour volume is marked thin and left out of the spread.

Sources, October 20, 2026, 03:53 UTC: Hyperliquid metaAndAssetCtxs (hourly rate × 8); Lighter /api/v1/funding-rates (Lighter and Binance rows, already per 8 hours); Aster premiumIndex + fundingInfo (rate × 8 ÷ interval); edgeX quote/getTicker (rate per 4-hour payment × 2). Volumes: each venue’s 24-hour figure; Binance is treated as liquid. Break-even = taker fees to open and close $10,000 on both legs (with HOLYGRAIL on Hyperliquid and DTLpLc on Aster) ÷ one day of the current spread. Spread APR is simple (× 1,095). A rate printed now is not a rate you will earn for a week.

Reading it. The widest liquid gap at build time was XMR: short Hyperliquid at 0.0571%, long Lighter at 0.0096%, a spread of 0.0475% per 8 hours (52.1% a year), which would cover $8.64 of round-trip fees in 14.5 hours if it held. The biggest gaps usually come from one venue whose book is crowded on one side, often a recent listing; check that both legs trade many times your size (the thin tags above) and that the gap has lasted days, not one print. The hourly Hyperliquid-only view, with Binance and Bybit, is in the Hyperliquid funding rate spread table.

3. Worked example: 7 days, $10,000 per leg, real fees

What a constant short received (a long paid) over the 7 days to October 15, 2026, 04:00 UTC: 168 hourly payments on Hyperliquid and Lighter, 42 four-hourly on edgeX, 21 or 42 on Aster and Binance depending on the coin’s interval. Negative = shorts paid longs.

Hyperliquid fundingHistory, Lighter /api/v1/fundings (1h), Aster and Binance fapi/v1/fundingRate, edgeX getFundingRatePage (settlements only), all read October 15, 2026 (registry r15-j04). PENGU has no edgeX market. Net = funding spread on $10,000 minus taker fees to open and close both legs, with HOLYGRAIL on Hyperliquid and DTLpLc on Aster; before slippage and price differences between the venues. Past funding does not predict future funding.

That week 4 of 6 coins paid more than the fees on their best pair (ETH, SOL, XRP, PENGU). Three of them, worked through:

• A. The carry on a major does not pay in a week. BTC funding on Hyperliquid summed to 0.1049%, $10.49 on $10,000, against $22.08 of taker fees (0.07% spot + 0.045% perp, each way, less 4%). With limit orders on both legs the fees fall to $10.56 and the week nets −$0.07. At that rate the carry needs 14.7 days with market orders, 7.0 days with limit orders. UBTC is a bridged token (Unit), which adds custody risk to the spot leg.
• B. SOL paid on both legs. Shorts on Hyperliquid received 0.1402% while longs on Lighter received 0.1362%, because Lighter SOL funding was negative: the pair collected $27.64, paid $8.64 of fees and covered them in 2.2 days. Both books are deep: SOL traded $463.5M on Hyperliquid and $79.6M on Lighter in 24 hours.
• C. XRP via edgeX. edgeX sat at its baseline all week (0.21%) while Lighter XRP went negative (−0.2268%), a $43.68 spread on $10,000. edgeX publishes no referee discount, so its 0.045% taker applies in full. Lighter’s XRP book is the smaller one: $5.4M a day against $47.4M on edgeX.
• The thinnest books were the worst trade to size. PENGU shorts received 0.1967% on Aster while shorts on Hyperliquid paid 0.1519% ($18.62 net on paper for the pair), but traded $298K a day on Aster, $222K on Lighter and $5.9M on Hyperliquid at a 5x cap. A $10,000 market order moves a book that size; slippage on four fills can erase the week.

Funding Rate Calculator — Funding rate calculator: what one position pays or earns per hour, day, month and over your hold on Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, edgeX and Binance, at each venue's own interval and cap. — Open the calculator →

4. Funding arbitrage calculator

Estimate a pair before you open it. Enter both legs and their funding rates on an 8-hour basis; use averages, not the current print. The buttons load the 7-day averages from the table above (the 7-day total ÷ 21) and put the highest-paying venue on the short leg. Fees come from each venue’s current schedule.

5. The cost stack: fees, rebalancing, capital

Fees are the hurdle the spread has to clear, and they are paid four times: open and close on each leg. In basis points of notional, base tier, with our codes applied:

Taker / maker per fill: Hyperliquid tier 0 0.045% / 0.015% (4% less with HOLYGRAIL), Lighter Standard 0% / 0%, Aster Pro 0.04% / 0% (5% back with DTLpLc), edgeX 0.045% / 0.04%, Binance USDⓈ-M regular 0.050% / 0.020%. Maker rows assume both limit orders fill at your price, which is not guaranteed when a spread is moving. Lighter Standard taker orders carry a short delay.

• Rebalancing. When one leg gains and the other loses, margin has to move between venues. Withdrawals: Hyperliquid 0.2 USDC plus a little gas (within 5 minutes), Lighter fast withdrawal about 15–20 seconds, Aster about 30 seconds, edgeX cross-chain 0.1% (dated figures in each venue’s withdrawal guide). Each move also means a window in which one leg is under-margined.
• Capital. Two perp legs at 3x tie up two-thirds of the notional in margin; a spot + perp carry ties up the full notional plus the perp margin. Compare the net with what idle USDC earns: 2.83% (verified September 27, 2026) when supplied on Hyperliquid.
• Rule of thumb. Expected net funding over your planned hold (from a 7-day average, not the current print) should be at least 1.5–2× the round-trip fees; both books should trade many times your size; each leg at 2–3x should sit 30% or more from liquidation; and you need an exit rule for when the spread closes or flips.

6. Basis trades and price arbitrage

Spot–perp basis. A basis trade shorts the perp and buys spot when the perp trades rich, then closes when the gap narrows. Over the 721 hours to September 25, 2026, the Hyperliquid BTC, ETH, SOL and HYPE perps closed an hour at least 10 bp above their spot pairs in only 1–4% of hours, and never reached the 22.1 bp a market-order round trip on both legs costs (10.6 bp with limit orders). Funding also stays at the baseline while the premium is inside the ±0.05% clamp, so a small visible basis does not raise funding. Use the basis to time the entry of a carry, not as the trade.

Cross-venue price arbitrage. In 20 snapshots on September 25, 2026 (16:20–16:22 UTC) the largest crossed gap between Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, Binance and Bybit on BTC, ETH, SOL or HYPE was 8.7 bp, and Hyperliquid’s BTC and ETH sat 3–5 bp above the CEXs in every snapshot: a persistent basis, not a mistake. Round trips cost more than that (table above), capital has to sit on every venue already, and the gap closes in milliseconds. That is a game for co-located market makers; funding is the part of the spread a retail account can actually hold.

7. Risks: what actually loses money

• One leg gets liquidated. The legs are hedged in price but margined on different venues. A move of about 30% against the short leg at 3x liquidates it while the long sits on an equal gain somewhere you cannot reach in time. Keep leverage at 2–3x, keep a margin buffer on both venues, and set alerts on the liquidation price (liquidation price calculator).
• Funding flips. Rates reset every hour on Hyperliquid and Lighter. In the 7 days above, Lighter funding went negative on ETH, SOL and XRP while Hyperliquid stayed positive on all three; the same thing in reverse turns a paying pair into one that pays on both legs. Decide in advance at what spread you exit.
• Auto-deleveraging (ADL). In a crash, a venue can close profitable positions against liquidated ones. If it closes your winning leg, the other leg is suddenly naked (insurance fund and ADL on Hyperliquid).
• Bridge and withdrawal delays. Moving margin takes minutes on a good day and longer when a chain is congested or a withdrawal queue builds, exactly when markets move fastest. Bridged spot tokens (UBTC, USOL) add the bridge’s own custody risk.
• Basis risk. The two legs are priced off different order books and oracles. If you open at a price gap and close at a wider one, the loss comes out of the funding. A gap of 3–5 bp on $10,000 is $3–5 per leg, a meaningful slice of a week’s spread.
• Settlement timing. Hyperliquid and Lighter pay every hour, edgeX every 4 hours, Aster and Binance every 1 to 8 hours depending on the coin. Closing just before one leg’s settlement skips a payment on that leg only.
• Venue risk. Each venue is a separate smart contract, bridge and operator. A pair doubles your exposure to that, so spread capital, and read each venue’s review before funding it (the best DEXs compared).

The single-venue version of this trade, hedging a coin you already hold rather than farming funding, is in how to hedge crypto with perpetuals.

8. Bots and tools

A neutral list of what exists. None of it removes the fee hurdle or the liquidation risk; it only saves you checking five tabs.

• Hyperliquid Funding Comparison (app.hyperliquid.xyz, More menu): Hyperliquid against Binance and Bybit for every coin on an 8-hour basis, updated continuously. Official, Hyperliquid-centred.
• Lighter funding-rates API: one public call returns Lighter, Hyperliquid, Binance and Bybit rates on an 8-hour basis; the table above uses it. Endpoint details in funding rate APIs.
• CoinGlass funding arbitrage list: a third-party screener across many exchanges, mostly centralised ones. Useful for spotting a gap; check the rate on the venue itself before trading.
• Hummingbot: Hummingbot ships an open-source funding-rate arbitrage script (v2_funding_rate_arb.py) whose defaults pair Hyperliquid with Binance; it has Hyperliquid and Lighter perp connectors, none for Aster or edgeX (checked October 15, 2026). Running it means hosting a bot with API keys on both venues; start with small size (DEX trading bots compared, Hyperliquid API).
• Your own poller: the five rate calls in the source note above, run hourly, flagging coins whose spread exceeds your fee hurdle for more than a day, is all a basic scanner needs.

9. FAQ

Disclosure: HOLYGRAIL, 718610TD, DTLpLc and the edgeX HOLYGRAIL code are our referral codes; we earn a share of referred accounts’ trading fees at no cost to you. Live rates are rebuilt from each venue’s public API about every 6 hours and show the fetch time; the 7-day figures are a dated snapshot. Not investment advice: past funding does not predict future funding.