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Funding is a small payment that changes hands every hour between the long side and the short side of a market. It isn’t a fee and none of it goes to Turbo — it’s the mechanism that keeps a perpetual future’s price tracking the asset it represents.

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Why it exists

A perpetual future never expires, so nothing forces its price to converge with the underlying asset’s price the way an expiry date does for a traditional future. Funding is what does that job instead:
  • When the contract trades above the asset’s price, longs pay shorts. Being long gets slightly more expensive, being short slightly more attractive — pressure that pulls the price back down toward the asset.
  • When the contract trades below the asset’s price, shorts pay longs — the same pressure, in reverse.
The further the contract drifts from the asset, the stronger the funding pressure — which is what keeps the contract’s price anchored even while the underlying exchange is closed.

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What it means for you

  • Depending on your side, you pay it or receive it. Holding a position doesn’t only cost — if you’re on the side being paid, funding is income while you hold.
  • The current funding rate is shown in the app on the market and position screens, so you can see which side pays before you open a trade.
  • It’s small per hour, but it accumulates. For a position held minutes or hours it’s usually negligible. For a position held for weeks, it’s worth checking what your side has been paying or earning.
  • It’s peer-to-peer. Funding moves between traders. Turbo’s revenue is the trading fee — not funding.
  • Markets — how perpetual futures track their assets.
  • Fees — what Turbo actually charges.