Funding Rate Arbitrage: Live Scanner, Strategy, Bots and the Fee Maths

1. Funding rate arbitrage scanner: live spreads on five venues

Current rates on Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, edgeX and Binance, all converted to an 8-hour basis, as of November 3, 2026, 12:27 UTC. Each group is sorted by spread, widest first: the majors, then 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, November 3, 2026, 12:27 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 at each venue’s standard rate (no referral codes) ÷ 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 0.0100%, long Lighter at −0.0152%, a spread of 0.0252% per 8 hours (27.6% a year), which would cover $9.00 of round-trip fees in 28.6 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. Hyperliquid against Binance on its own is in Hyperliquid funding rate arbitrage below, and the hourly history in the Hyperliquid funding rate spread table.

2. Funding rate arbitrage strategy: spot-perp carry or cross-exchange

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

3. Hyperliquid funding rate arbitrage

Hyperliquid is the usual first leg because it has the deepest on-chain books and pays funding every hour. Its docs compute an 8-hour rate and pay one eighth of it at the end of each hour on the position open at that moment, so a position opened and closed inside the hour pays nothing, and one held across the hour mark gets the full hourly payment. What matters for an arbitrage:

• The baseline favours shorts. The interest component is fixed at 0.01% per 8 hours, which Hyperliquid’s docs put at 11.6% a year paid to shorts. When the premium is small the rate sits at that baseline, so a calm major pays shorts about that much before fees.
• The cap is wide. Funding is capped at 4% per hour, the same for every asset; the docs call this much less aggressive than on centralized exchanges, and Lighter caps at 0.5% per hour. In a squeeze the hourly rate can run far beyond anything Binance pays, which is the opportunity and the risk.
• Payment uses the oracle price. The funding payment is position size × oracle price × rate, not the mark price, so the two legs of a pair are never paid on exactly the same notional.
• HIP-3 markets differ. Builder-deployed markets (stocks, gold, indices) set their own funding multiplier (0 to 10) and interest rate, and their clamp defaults to 0.03% per 8 hours. trade.xyz scales funding by 0.5 on almost all of its markets, so their baseline is that fraction of the validator perps’ rate. Compare a HIP-3 market only with the same underlying elsewhere, not with crypto funding.

Which pairs: Hyperliquid against Binance and Bybit

The official app has a Funding Comparison page (More → Funding Comparison) that lists every market’s rate on Hyperliquid, Binance and Bybit on the same basis, with a “Binance-HL Arb” and “Bybit-HL Arb” column for the gap. The same data comes from the public info request predictedFundings. Binance settles BTC every 8 hours but many altcoins every 4 hours, so convert every rate to one interval before you compare. The table below does that per hour and refreshes in your browser while you read: the majors first, then the coins where Hyperliquid and a CEX disagree most right now.

Reading it. When this page was built (2026-11-03 12:27 UTC) the widest liquid gap was LIT: Hyperliquid’s predicted +0.00125% per hour against Bybit at −0.00455%, a gap of +0.0058% per hour (+50.85% a year). Shorting Hyperliquid and going long on Bybit would collect about $13.93 a day on $10,000 per leg, so taker fees to open and close both legs ($20.00 at standard rates: Hyperliquid 0.045% plus Bybit 0.055%) take 34.5 hours to earn back if the gap held. It rarely holds: a predicted rate is re-set every hour on Hyperliquid and every 4 to 8 hours on the CEX, so watch a gap over several hours before you size it.

Spot-perp on Hyperliquid alone. A carry inside one account (short the perp, buy the spot pair) avoids moving margin between venues, but spot fees are higher (0.07% taker against 0.045% on perps) and only coins with a spot pair qualify; for BTC, ETH and SOL the spot token is bridged through Unit (worked example A). The formula, the cap and live rates per coin are in our Hyperliquid funding rate guide.

4. How much does funding arbitrage make? 7 days, $10,000 per leg

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 at each venue’s standard rate (no referral codes; HOLYGRAIL takes 4% off the Hyperliquid fills, DTLpLc gives 5% back 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 $23.00 of taker fees (0.07% spot + 0.045% perp, each way; $22.08 with code HOLYGRAIL). With limit orders on both legs the fees fall to $11.00 and the week nets −$0.51. At that rate the carry needs 15.3 days with market orders, 7.3 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 $9.00 of fees ($8.64 with HOLYGRAIL on the Hyperliquid leg) and covered them in 2.3 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% ($17.86 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 →

5. 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 at standard rates; what code HOLYGRAIL would take off the Hyperliquid fills shows on its own line under the result, and the codes box applies both of our codes to the result itself. This is an estimate, not a forecast.

6. 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, standard rates (no referral codes):

With code HOLYGRAIL the Hyperliquid fills cost 4% less: the all-taker Hyperliquid + Lighter round trip falls from 9 bp to 8.6 bp ($8.64 on $10,000) for your first $25M of volume. Taker / maker per fill: Hyperliquid tier 0 0.045% / 0.015%, 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 tiny HyperEVM gas fee (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: 3.5% (verified October 22, 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.

7. 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 23 bp a market-order round trip on both legs costs at standard rates (11 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.

8. Is funding rate arbitrage risk-free? 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.
• Liquidation runs on each venue’s own price. Hyperliquid pays funding on the oracle price and liquidates on its mark price; the other leg uses another venue’s marks. In a fast move the two can diverge enough to liquidate one leg of a “delta-neutral” pair, which is how most reported losses happen.
• Someone else in the middle. Some bots and aggregators place your orders through their own account, API key or builder code. Know whose account holds the position and who can withdraw from it.
• 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.

9. Funding rate arbitrage bots and scanners

A bot does not change the maths; it removes the delay. Whatever you run has to do six things: read every venue’s rate and convert it to one interval; open both legs at the same time and handle a fill on one side only; keep margin on both venues and move it before a leg gets close to liquidation; exit when the spread closes or flips; log funding received per leg; and trade through keys that cannot withdraw. What exists, checked on GitHub on October 22, 2026:

Repositories, READMEs and default configs read on GitHub on October 22, 2026. Listing is not a recommendation; run any bot with small size first. Never paste your main wallet’s private key into a bot: create an API (agent) wallet on Hyperliquid, which can trade but cannot withdraw (API key security). Building your own: Hyperliquid trading bots and automated strategies, and DEX trading bots compared.

Scanners

• Hyperliquid Funding Comparison (app.hyperliquid.xyz, More menu): every Hyperliquid market against Binance and Bybit on one basis, with the gap. Official, Hyperliquid-centred.
• Lighter funding-rates API: one public call returns Lighter, Hyperliquid, Binance and Bybit rates on an 8-hour basis; the scanner above uses it. Endpoint details in funding rate APIs.
• CoinGlass funding arbitrage pages: spot-perp and perp-perp lists across mostly centralized exchanges; on October 22 its cross-exchange list had Aster legs but no Hyperliquid or Lighter legs.
• Loris Tools: a free screener across about 44 venues, centralized and decentralized (Hyperliquid, Lighter, Aster, edgeX and the HIP-3 markets included), normalised to 8 hours.
• Your own poller: the five rate calls in the scanner note, run hourly, flagging coins whose spread clears your fee hurdle for more than a day, is all a basic scanner needs. A screener’s APR is a gross number before fees and before the price gap between venues.

10. 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.