The funding arbitrage screener: how it measures the rate gap
The funding rate is not a single market-wide number: every exchange computes it from its own order book. The funding arbitrage screener compares rates on one pair across the venues you ticked, and sends an alert when the distance between the highest and the lowest reaches your threshold.
One caveat matters more than anything else on this page: the screener reports a gap between rates, not a profit. Fees on two legs, slippage, the cost of margin on two venues at once, and the risk that one leg moves before the other are yours, and none of those figures enter the calculation. What the rate itself is is covered in “What the funding rate is”.
In short
- The screener compares the funding rate on one pair across exchanges and reports when the gap reaches your threshold. At least two futures venues are needed.
- The threshold is set in basis points: 1 bp = 0.01%, 25 bps = 0.25%.
- The gap is a state, not a moment: the alert repeats while it holds, but no more often than the per-coin pause (8 hours by default).
- The screener measures the gap between rates. Fees, execution, and the risk of the two legs are yours, and none of them enter the calculation.
How the gap is measured: a common basis first, the difference second
Every minute the screener collects the pair’s rates from all your futures venues, converts them to an 8-hour equivalent, and takes the difference between the highest and the lowest. The conversion is mandatory: an exchange reports the rate for its own settlement interval, and without a common basis a venue that settles hourly would almost always look like the “cheapest” side simply because its number is smaller.
An illustrative example. Both rates are printed in the alert already converted — otherwise the gap would not add up if you checked it by hand.
| Venue | Interval | Rate on the exchange | Converted to 8h |
|---|---|---|---|
| Venue A | 4 hours | +0.045% | +0.09% |
| Venue B | 1 hour | −0.02% | −0.16% |
| Gap | — | — | 0.25% = 25 bps |
The gap is computed on futures only, and only among the exchanges ticked in your general settings: spot has no funding, and a venue without it would produce a gap against a phantom zero. Pairs present on a single venue are skipped entirely — at least two legs are required. The platform covers 9 futures venues.
Which pairs reach an alert, and which are filtered out
Between “the gap is above the threshold” and “an alert arrived” sit four checks, and each cuts out its own class of false finds.
The pair set
Your choice: every available pair, the top 100 by 24-hour turnover, or your own list of base tickers (“BTC”, not “BTCUSDT”). The favourites and blocked-coin lists work on top of that: the universe is picked first, then blocked coins are subtracted from it.Liquidity floors — per leg, separately
Minimum open interest and minimum 24-hour turnover are set in millions of dollars, and each of the two venues has to clear them, not the pair on average. A thin second leg is the most common way to see a wide gap where there is nothing to trade it with.Gap stability
You can require the gap to hold above the threshold for several minutes in a row (0 to 30; 0 turns the check off). Predicted rates twitch minute to minute, and a threshold taken from a single minute catches one-minute spikes. Minutes with no data are skipped rather than counted as a failure: one venue missing for a minute is routine, and reading it as “the gap collapsed” would be wrong.The per-coin pause
The gap is a state, so instead of a per-period alert cap there is a pause: one coin fires no more than once per the number of minutes you set, 480 minutes by default, that is 8 hours. A gap that survives the next settlements is a new situation rather than the same firing. Every form field is explained in “Funding arbitrage screener settings”.
What the alert contains
The message carries exactly what the screener measured:
- the pair and the size of the gap — in basis points and in percent;
- the gap converted to an annual figure;
- a line for the venue with the higher rate (labelled as the short leg), linked, with the rate itself;
- a line for the venue with the lower rate (labelled as the long leg) and its rate;
- open interest in dollars — for the largest of the venues that entered the calculation;
- the 24-hour price range: high, current, and low;
- coin tags plus chart and exchange links — the ones you picked in general settings.
An illustrative example
A 25 bps threshold, 3 minutes of stability, the top 100 by turnover as the pair set, and per-leg filters of open interest from $10m and turnover from $50m. The rates in the table above give a gap of 0.25%, that is exactly 25 bps, and it held above the threshold over the preceding minutes. An alert arrives: 25 bps (0.25%), an annualised figure of about 274%, venue A at +0.09%, venue B at −0.16%, the open interest of the largest venue in the calculation, and the 24-hour price range. After that the screener stays quiet on this pair for at least eight hours, even if the gap widens.
The annualised figure in this example is today’s gap stretched over a year, not a return. A gap of that size lives until the next settlements, both legs cost fees to open and to close, and margin sits locked on two venues the whole time.
How the screener helps
Comparing rates across thousands of futures pairs on every venue by hand is not realistic, and a gap only lives until the next settlements. The screener makes that sweep every minute and sends an alert only where the gap reached your threshold and both legs cleared your liquidity floors. The message carries the size of the gap, the rates on both venues, and open interest.
Why you get too many alerts, or too few
Four things set the frequency here: the threshold, the stability check, the pair set, and the pause. None of them works on its own.
Nothing arrives
Usually it is one of four reasons: only one futures exchange is ticked (two are the minimum); the threshold is higher than the gap ever widens to on liquid pairs; the pair set is your own list and the list is empty; the open interest and turnover filters keep rejecting the second leg.Too many alerts
A low threshold on the “every pair” set is the most common combination: wide gaps live mostly on thin contracts, and there are many of those. Raise the threshold, switch to the top 100 by turnover, or turn on the liquidity floors — and the same screener gets noticeably quieter.There is a gap but no alert
Two usual causes. The per-coin pause: this pair already fired less than your set number of minutes ago. And the stability check: the gap flashed for one minute and collapsed, and the “holds for 3 minutes” requirement did not let it through. That is exactly what the check is switched on for.There is no per-period alert cap here
Unlike the other screeners, funding arbitrage has no “no more than N alerts per coin per period” counter. Frequency is held by the pause alone, so that is the dial to move if the feed feels too dense.How it differs from the cross-exchange scenario in the funding screener
Both look at the same quantity — the difference between venues — but they behave differently and live in different messages.
| What we compare | Funding arbitrage | Cross-exchange scenario |
|---|---|---|
| Threshold unit | Basis points (25 bps = 0.25%) | Percent (0.04% by default) |
| When it arrives | While the gap holds above the threshold, no more often than the pause | Once, in the minute the threshold is crossed |
| What holds the frequency | A per-coin pause, 8 hours by default | The per-coin alert cap for the period |
| Stability check | Yes: 0 to 30 minutes in a row | No |
| Pair set | All, the top 100 by turnover, or your own list | Every pair on your futures exchanges |
| What the message says | Its own alert: the gap, the annualised figure, both legs, open interest | A line inside the funding screener’s message |
Which to pick
If the rate gap is your main subject, take funding arbitrage: it has a threshold in basis points, a stability check, and its own message. If you watch the level of the rate and want the divergence merely as an extra prompt, the scenario inside the funding screener is enough.What neither of them does
Neither counts fees, slippage, the cost of margin, or the risk of one leg being liquidated. Neither promises the gap will survive until you enter: rates are recomputed constantly, and by the time a position is built the difference may already be different. Current market extremes are on the funding extremes page, and settlement intervals per venue are on the funding intervals page.Funding arbitrage FAQ
What is funding arbitrage?
It is the name for working with the difference in funding rates on one coin across two exchanges: higher on one venue, lower or negative on the other. The screener measures that difference and shows it. Whether it is worth anything after fees, slippage, and the cost of holding margin on two venues is yours to work out.
How do I read a threshold in basis points?
One basis point is 0.01%, and 100 basis points are 1%. Funding rates are fractions of a percent, so the difference between them is easier to count in basis points. The default threshold is 15 bps, that is 0.15% of difference per settlement; the slider in the form runs from 1 to 100 bps.
Why doesn’t the alert on one pair arrive every minute?
The screener has a per-coin pause: 8 hours by default, and you can change it in the settings. Without the pause an alert would leave every minute while the gap holds — unlike the other funding scenarios, the gap here is a state rather than an event.
Does the screener account for fees and slippage?
No. It measures the difference between rates and knows nothing about your fees, position size, slippage, or the cost of margin on two venues. The annualised figure in the alert converts the current gap to a familiar scale, it is not a return.
Why are rates converted to eight hours?
An exchange reports the rate for its own settlement interval. A pair settling every four hours and a pair settling every eight show numbers that differ twofold at the same cost of holding. Without the conversion, a venue with a short interval would almost always end up as the lowest-rate side.
Which pairs does the funding arbitrage screener check?
Your choice: every available pair, the top 100 by 24-hour turnover, or your own list of base tickers. The favourites and blocked-coin lists work on top of that set, and each leg separately has to clear the open interest and turnover filters.
How is it different from the cross-exchange scenario in the funding screener?
That scenario reports the moment the gap crossed a threshold set in percent, and it lives inside the funding screener’s own message. Here the gap is the subject: a threshold in basis points, a separate stability check, a choice of the pair set, a pause instead of a cap, and its own message that labels both legs.
Every form field and the ready-made presets are covered in “Funding arbitrage screener settings”. How funding itself works is in “What the funding rate is”, and the other rate scenarios are in the article on the funding screener.
Other Knowledge Base Articles
Basic theory
About Our Screeners
Screener's settings