Funding Rate Arbitrage Scanner — Find Free Money Across Exchanges

What Is Funding Rate Arbitrage?

Funding rates are periodic payments between long and short traders on perpetual futures. When the rate is positive, longs pay shorts. When negative, shorts pay longs.

The key insight: funding rates differ across exchanges. Bitcoin might have +15% annualized funding on Hyperliquid but only +3% on Binance. That 12% gap is free money if you know how to capture it.

How the Strategy Works

The concept is simple:

Short the asset on the exchange where funding is highest (you receive the payment)

Long the same asset on the exchange where funding is lowest (you pay less, or also receive)

Since you're both long and short the same amount, price movements cancel out. Your profit comes purely from the funding rate differential.

Reading the Buildix Arb Scanner

The Buildix Funding Arb Scanner compares funding rates across three exchanges in real-time: Hyperliquid, Binance, and Bybit.

For each pair with a significant spread, you see:

Funding rates per exchange — annualized percentage so you can compare apples to apples

Spread — the difference between the highest and lowest rate. This is your theoretical profit

Strategy — which exchange to short and which to long

Estimated APR — what you'd earn annualized if rates stay constant

What Makes a Good Opportunity?

Not every spread is worth trading. Here's what to look for:

APR above 20% — below this, fees and slippage eat most of the profit

Liquid pairs — BTC, ETH, SOL have tight spreads on all exchanges. Illiquid pairs may have funding arb on paper but the execution cost kills it

Persistent spreads — check if the spread has been consistent or if it just spiked temporarily. Buildix shows real-time data, so check back over multiple readings

Account for fees — Hyperliquid taker fees are 0.035%, Binance 0.04%, Bybit 0.055%. A round trip (open + close on both sides) costs roughly 0.15-0.2%

Risks to Consider

Funding arb is considered low-risk, but not risk-free:

Funding rates change every 8 hours — a profitable spread today could disappear tomorrow

Execution risk — if you can't open both legs simultaneously, price movement between the two trades creates exposure

Margin requirements — you need capital on two exchanges. If price moves significantly, one side might need additional margin

Exchange risk — you're trusting two exchanges with your funds

Example Setup

Say BTC funding on Hyperliquid is +25% annualized and on Binance it's +5%:

1. Short $10,000 BTC on Hyperliquid (receive ~25% APR)
2. Long $10,000 BTC on Binance (pay ~5% APR)
3. Net APR: ~20% on $10,000 per side ($20,000 total capital)
4. That's roughly $4,000/year or $333/month from a market-neutral position

The Buildix scanner finds these opportunities automatically across all 311+ pairs, not just BTC.

Getting Started

1. Go to buildix.trade/screener/funding-arb
2. Filter by minimum APR (start with 10%+)
3. Click any pair to see the full deep view with orderflow data
4. Verify the spread has been persistent by checking back over several hours
5. Execute on both exchanges with matching position sizes

The scanner updates every 60 seconds and is available on the Pro plan.