> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.defiloops.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Funding and open interest

> What a leveraged position pays to stay open, read from two venues separately, since 2021

**Tool:** `get_funding_and_oi`

`get_funding_and_oi` returns the daily funding rate and open interest for BTC or
ETH, back to 2021.

## A positive rate is what longs PAY

Funding is the payment that keeps a perpetual's price near spot. **Positive
funding means longs pay shorts.**

So sustained positive funding is the running cost of holding the long side — and
the figure to set against any yield a delta-neutral position claims to earn,
because that yield usually *is* funding, collected on the short leg.

```
ETH perpetual funding and open interest — 2080 days, 2021-01-01 to 2026-09-11.

  funding (Binance)  +11.53%/yr
  funding (Bybit)    +12.71%/yr
  negative days      13.8%   (longs were paid, rather than paying)
```

The share of **negative days** is the tail risk of the carry trade: a position
built to collect funding loses money in exactly the periods when everybody wants
to be short.

## Two venues, never averaged

Binance and Bybit are read separately and both reported. They agree closely —
correlation around 0.85 on BTC — and **where they do not, that disagreement is
the reading**. An average would hide precisely the days worth knowing about.

Bybit has run about a point higher than Binance over the series. Quote whichever
venue the position would actually trade on, not a blend.

## A missing series is not a zero

Open interest comes from a per-symbol daily archive that begins 2021-01-01, and
some symbols are not in it. When one is absent the answer **says so**:

```
  OPEN INTEREST: none published for ETH. The daily archive carries it per
  symbol and this one is absent — that is a gap in the source, not a reading
  of zero, and nothing below should be inferred about positioning.
```

<Warning>
  This matters more than it looks. An open interest of zero is a claim about the
  market — that nobody holds a position — and it is never true. A silent zero read
  as a reading is how an agent concludes something dramatic about positioning from
  a hole in a data feed.
</Warning>

## What comes back when it is there

Size in coins and in dollars, plus three ratios: top-trader long/short **by
position size** and **by account count** — which differ when a few large accounts
sit on one side — and taker buy/sell volume, which says who crossed the spread.

They describe what has already happened. They are positioning indicators, not
signals.


## Related topics

- [What we hold](/data/streams.md)
- [Hyperliquid](/data/hyperliquid.md)
- [What the agent knows](/skills.md)
- [Every tool](/tools/reference.md)
- [The catalogue](/adapters/catalogue.md)