Funding on DEXs and CEXs: what is different

Perp DEXs and CEXs use the same family of funding formulas: the perp's premium over its index plus a small interest term. The plumbing differs. Most DEXs pay every hour, cap funding loosely, charge 0–4.5 bps per taker fill and need no KYC. CEXs mostly pay every 4 or 8 hours, cap majors tightly, charge 2–7.5 bps and require KYC.

DEX vs CEX funding: the short version

Fees are base tiers as of October 2026; intervals and caps vary by market, so check the venue page.

How often is funding paid on DEXs and CEXs?

Most perp DEXs settle every hour, including Hyperliquid, Lighter, Extended, Nado, Pacifica and Hibachi. Aster pays most altcoins hourly but BTC and ETH every 8 hours; GRVT and Variational mostly use 4 or 8 hours.

CEXs set the interval per market too. In October 2026, Binance paid BTC, ETH, SOL and most other large caps (BNB, XRP, DOGE, ADA, LINK) every 8 hours and most smaller perps every 4; Bybit and Bitget looked similar. When funding runs hot, CEX markets settle more often. Since May 2025, a Binance market whose settlement hits the cap or floor switches to hourly, and since January 2026 it returns to 4 hours after 16 calm hourly cycles. Bybit has done the same on many markets since 30 October 2025.

Timing matters: you pay or receive funding only if your position is open at funding time. An hourly leg pays 24 small amounts a day, an 8-hour leg three lumps. Open a pair just after a settlement on an 8-hour Binance market, and the DEX leg settles seven times before the CEX leg settles once. Over weeks this evens out; over a day it does not.

Do DEXs and CEXs calculate funding differently?

Not in principle. Hyperliquid, Binance and Lighter publish the same structure:

funding = premium + clamp(interest − premium, −0.05%, +0.05%)

The interest term is 0.01% per 8 hours on all three (Binance quotes it as 0.03% a day). Hyperliquid and Lighter compute an 8-hour rate and pay an eighth of it hourly. The inputs differ:

• The premium comes from each venue's own order book against its own index or oracle. Hyperliquid and Binance sample it every 5 seconds, Lighter once a minute.
• The payment price. Hyperliquid values your position at the oracle price, a weighted median of CEX spot prices computed by its validators. Binance uses the mark price and Lighter the index price. On liquid coins the difference is tiny.
• The traders. Each venue's crowd leans long or short in its own way.

When the premium is small, the clamp snaps the rate to the interest term: 0.01% per 8 hours, or 10.95% APR, so on calm markets the majors cluster around that level. In one snapshot of our data (9 July 2026), BTC's 7-day funding sat between 10.1% and 11.2% APR on seven of the ten DEXs with a full 7-day figure; the other three showed 8.3%, 2.0% and −8.5%. Spreads on majors are often near zero; pairs come from the outliers. To convert 1-, 4- and 8-hour rates to APR yourself, see What is a funding rate?

Why can DEX funding run hotter than CEX funding?

Caps. Every venue limits funding, and the limits differ by orders of magnitude:

• Hyperliquid: 4% per hour.
• RISEx: 4% per hour with no extra clamp, so thin markets can spike.
• Lighter: 0.5% per hour (4% per 8 hours).
• Binance BTC/ETH: ±0.30% per 8-hour interval, about 0.0375% per hour.
• MEXC BTC/ETH: ±0.18% per 8-hour interval, about 0.0225% per hour.

Other large caps are capped slightly wider (Binance SOL ±0.375%, DOGE ±0.4875% per interval), and most smaller CEX perps at about ±2% on Binance and ±2.5–3% on MEXC. On a calm major no cap binds. In a squeeze on a thin DEX market, funding can climb to levels a CEX would clip, which is where many three-digit APRs on screeners come from. Such spikes usually fade, so judge a pair by its 7-day spread.

How much do fees change the result?

A pair pays taker fees on four fills, open and close on both legs: fee_rt = 2 × (taker_long + taker_short), in bps of one leg's notional. Base tiers differ a lot:

• Lighter + Extended: 2 × (0 + 2.5) = 5 bps.
• MEXC + Lighter: 2 × (2.0 + 0) = 4 bps (MEXC's base tier for manual orders on most crypto perps; API orders pay more; fees vary by region).
• Hyperliquid + Binance: 2 × (4.5 + 5.0) = 19 bps.
• Gate + GRVT: 2 × (7.5 + 4.5) = 24 bps.

Two caveats: Lighter's zero-fee standard accounts delay taker orders by about 300 ms, and Variational charges no fee but fills every trade at its market maker's quote, a spread our net APR does not include.

Hyperliquid vs Binance funding: a worked example

Hypothetical rates for one coin (an illustration, not a forecast):

On $10,000 per leg held for 30 days, the spread pays about $54 and fees cost $19, leaving about $35. At 3x on each leg, margin on both venues is about $6,667, or roughly 6.4% APR on capital.

Now put the same 6.57% spread on a 5 bps DEX–DEX pair such as Lighter + Extended. It breaks even in about 2.8 days and nets about 5.3% APR over 14 days instead of 1.6%. On narrow spreads, the fee schedule matters more than the venue type. Live markets and fees for both legs are on the Hyperliquid and Binance pages.

Predicted vs settled funding: what does "now" mean?

On a CEX, the rate shown mid-interval is the venue's live estimate of the next payment and can drift a long way before it is paid. We replace the estimates with settled payments once the venue's history catches up, which can take up to a day. On an hourly DEX the estimate covers at most an hour. Either way, "now" is the noisiest number on a screener; rank on the 7-day average.

Do I need KYC to trade a DEX–CEX pair?

For the CEX leg, yes. Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Gate and MEXC all require identity verification to trade, so a CEX–DEX pair needs one verified account and a CEX–CEX pair needs two. Most DEXs only need a wallet, but not all: GRVT is reported to require KYC (we have not verified it).

Regions matter on both sides. Hyperliquid's app is closed to the US and Ontario, Lighter's terms list the US, Canada, the UK and several other countries, and the CEX lists are longer still. The exchanges table shows each venue's type, KYC status, restricted regions and funding interval. Use only venues you are allowed to use.

USDT or USDC: does the collateral matter?

The CEX perps we track are USDT-margined, while Hyperliquid, Lighter, Extended and many other DEXs settle in USDC. A DEX–CEX pair therefore holds two stablecoins that trade close to, but not exactly at, 1:1, and rebalancing may need a swap as well as a transfer. The gap is usually small, so the effect on the pair's result is minor but not zero; our Spreads tab converts USDT prices to USDC for the same reason.

Points: the DEX extra

As of mid-2026, Lighter, Extended, Nado, Pacifica and Hibachi, among other DEXs, ran points programs. Hyperliquid's ended in 2024, Aster's trading stages have finished, and none of the CEXs we track runs one. Hedged points farming adds its own flow to DEX books and can push DEX funding away from CEX levels. A point has no known value until a token exists, so treat points as a bonus, not as a budget for losses. More on hedged farming: delta-neutral points farming.

Which pair type fits you?

• DEX–DEX. No KYC on most venues, usually hourly settlement on both legs, low fees and points on both sides. Thinner books, and two venues' smart-contract and operational risk.
• CEX–DEX. One verified account and a deep book on one side; different settlement times and two stablecoins.
• CEX–CEX. Two verified accounts and deep books. Tight caps on majors make wide BTC and ETH spreads rare, and both legs show predicted rates until settlement.

The Type filter in the funding screener keeps both legs on DEXs or both on CEXs; leave it on "All" to see mixed pairs. Rates change all the time, the numbers above are illustrations, and nothing here is investment advice.