Futures Basis
Basis is the gap between futures and spot price — the market's cost of leverage and the raw yield of the cash-and-carry trade. Positive basis (contango) means futures trade rich; negative (backwardation) means fear.
Basis by Coin
Perp vs spot premium and its annualized rate · top coins by market cap
| Coin | Price | Basis | Annualized | Avg Funding | 24h Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $77,155 | -0.047% | -16.98% | +0.0045% | $16.78B | |
| $2,522.78 | -0.051% | -18.51% | +0.0073% | $9.10B | |
| $726.31 | +0.055% | +20.10% | +0.0054% | $800.18M | |
| $1.36 | -0.059% | -21.39% | +0.0028% | $1.09B | |
| $101.37 | -0.039% | -14.39% | +0.0035% | $2.05B | |
| $0.339881 | -0.053% | -19.33% | -0.0045% | $461.56M | |
| $0.084771 | -0.047% | -17.22% | +0.0038% | $365.54M | |
| $11.5 | -0.070% | -25.38% | +0.0031% | $248.05M | |
| $0.207354 | -0.048% | -17.61% | +0.0008% | $238.20M | |
| $225.4 | -0.035% | -12.95% | +0.0065% | $122.69M | |
| $53.63 | -0.056% | -20.41% | +0.0019% | $153.21M |
Annualized basis above stablecoin lending rates makes the carry trade (buy spot, short the future) attractive, which itself compresses basis — a self-correcting signal. Extremes matter most: deeply negative basis has historically marked capitulation lows. Related: funding rates and open interest.
Reading the Basis
Futures above spot: traders pay a premium for leveraged upside. Mild contango is the healthy norm; double-digit annualized basis signals euphoric positioning.
Futures below spot: demand for downside protection outweighs leverage demand. Rare and usually brief — historically a contrarian buy signal at capitulation extremes.
Methodology & Sources
- Sources
- Aggregated exchange market data APIs (spot and perpetual tickers, funding rates)
- Coverage
- Top coins by market cap with active perpetual markets on major derivatives venues
- Formulas
- Basis = (perpetual price − spot price) ÷ spot price, expressed in percent; the annualized figure extrapolates that premium to a yearly cash-and-carry rate. Avg Funding is the mean current funding rate across venues listing the coin.
- Update frequency
- Refreshes roughly every 5 minutes.
- Units & timezone
- All monetary values are USD. Timestamps and daily buckets use UTC. 24h windows are rolling unless stated otherwise.
- Anomaly handling
- Exchanges that stop reporting are dropped from aggregates rather than carried forward; obvious outliers (bad ticks, decimal errors) are filtered before aggregation.