Exchange Funding Rate Comparison: Mar 18, 2026

Four exchanges. 77,137 settlements. Seven days of data. Here is what the numbers say.

The Data

All four exchanges posted negative average funding rates over the past seven days. The market is in net short-bias territory: longs are not paying shorts; shorts are paying longs, or rates are close enough to zero that negative averages are driven by a handful of outlier settlements.

Hyperliquid: The Outlier

Hyperliquid stands apart in two ways. First, settlement volume: 27,938 settlements vs. roughly 16,300–16,600 on every other exchange. Hyperliquid is settling funding at roughly 1.7x the cadence of its competitors, consistent with Hyperliquid's 1-hour settlement interval for most perpetuals, compared to the 8-hour intervals common on Binance, Bybit, and KuCoin.

Second, volatility: Hyperliquid's standard deviation is 0.0125%, an order of magnitude below KuCoin (0.1356%) and Bybit (0.1183%). This is not a liquidity story; Hyperliquid is running 229 active symbols against 560–609 on the others. The lower volatility reflects two things: fewer tail assets (which generate extreme funding events), and a more stable user base with systematic participants keeping rates anchored.

The median rate of +0.0007% means slightly more than half of Hyperliquid settlements are positive, with longs paying shorts in mild bull bias at the median. The mean pulling negative is driven by a subset of symbols with sustained negative rates, likely a handful of tokens with structural short pressure.

KuCoin: Most Volatile, Most Negative

KuCoin leads on both negative mean rate (-0.0158%) and volatility (0.1356%). With 560 symbols in the dataset, KuCoin is listing aggressively and that tail shows up in the numbers. Small-cap perpetuals with thin open interest generate large funding swings: a single event in a low-liquidity market can print a rate of ±0.5% or higher.

The negative median (-0.0025%) is notable. Unlike Bybit and Binance where the median is a positive +0.005%, KuCoin's median settlement is negative. The short bias isn't just in the tails; it's the base case.

Bybit and Binance: Structurally Similar

Bybit and Binance are nearly identical this week. Both show:

• ~16,300 settlements
• Mean rates around -0.0088% to -0.0123%
• Median of exactly +0.005%

The +0.005% median is the floor. On Bybit and Binance, when a settlement isn't zero, the default is often the exchange minimum: 0.01% rate / 2 = 0.005%. A large fraction of settlements are sitting at the minimum, which anchors the median there.

The negative mean on both exchanges is driven by the upper tail of the distribution: tokens in bearish regimes printing strongly negative funding while the bulk of the market clusters at the minimum floor.

What the Spread Means

Average rate divergence between the most negative (KuCoin at -0.0158%) and least negative (Hyperliquid at -0.0011%) is 14.7 basis points. Annualized, that's a meaningful gap, roughly 64% APR difference in funding cost if you held the same short exposure across these two venues simultaneously.

This spread creates cross-exchange opportunity. A position long on Hyperliquid and short on KuCoin in the same symbol captures this differential, delta-neutral to the underlying. The constraint is execution: KuCoin's higher volatility means the spread is not stable. It widens and compresses unpredictably.

Volatility as Signal

Rate volatility is a direct proxy for funding rate predictability. Hyperliquid at 0.0125% is highly predictable. KuCoin at 0.1356% is not. For mean-reversion strategies, lower volatility is preferred, offering smaller but more consistent capture. For momentum strategies (riding extended negative regimes), higher volatility markets like KuCoin offer larger payoffs when the direction holds.

The four exchanges effectively represent four risk tiers this week. Hyperliquid is the stable floor. Binance is large-cap with moderate noise. Bybit closely mirrors Binance. KuCoin is the volatile edge.

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If the negative rate regime across all four exchanges persists into next week, the cross-exchange spread between Hyperliquid and KuCoin will be worth watching closely for structural arbitrage setups.

Related reading:

• Deep Dive: LYNUSDT Funding Rate Analysis — a symbol-level case study from this same dataset
• Funding Rates Are Prediction Markets — why cross-exchange funding data reveals structural edges
• How the OU Model Predicts Funding Rates — the model that prices Settled's markets
• Binance BTC/USDT Funding Rate — live BTC funding rate history on Binance
• Browse All Markets — trade funding rate outcomes across all four exchanges