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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $79,232 | +0.028% | +10.09% | +0.0061% | $35.02B | |
| $2,269.49 | -0.016% | -5.76% | +0.0036% | $14.63B | |
| $709.2 | +0.018% | +6.67% | -0.0104% | $2.55B | |
| $1.2544 | -0.024% | -8.72% | +0.0016% | $2.36B | |
| $97.02 | +0.010% | +3.75% | +0.0039% | $3.76B | |
| $0.33898 | -0.041% | -14.89% | -0.0023% | $431.64M | |
| $0.0762 | -0.078% | -28.58% | +0.0052% | $603.53M | |
| $11.153 | +0.009% | +3.27% | +0.0037% | $348.55M | |
| $0.1928 | +0.155% | +56.74% | +0.0030% | $404.11M | |
| $276.03 | -0.040% | -14.52% | +0.0020% | $239.82M | |
| $4.195 | -0.094% | -34.34% | +0.0088% | $899.15M | |
| $55.47 | -0.054% | -19.68% | +0.0049% | $315.07M |
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.