Basis in one line
Basis is the difference between a futures price and the spot price of the same asset. If BTC spot is $100,000 and a futures contract trades at $101,000, the basis is $1,000, or 1%. Traders usually quote it as a percentage, and for small gaps in basis points (bps): 1 bp is 0.01%, so a 0.05% gap is 5 bps.
When futures trade above spot the market is in contango (positive basis). When they trade below, it is in backwardation (negative basis). In crypto, contango is the usual state, because demand for leveraged long exposure tends to exceed demand for leveraged shorts.
Dated futures: basis as a yield
A futures contract with an expiry date settles against spot on that date, so its basis has to shrink to zero by then. That makes basis on a dated contract a known return: buy spot, sell the future, hold both to expiry, and you collect the basis whatever the price does. This is the cash-and-carry trade.
Because contracts have different expiries, basis is annualised to compare them: divide the percentage by the days to expiry and multiply by 365. A 1% basis on a contract 30 days from expiry is about 12% a year; the same 1% with 90 days left is about 4%. Large funds run this trade on CME bitcoin and ether futures, which is why leveraged funds often show big net short positions in the CME COT report: many are short futures against long spot or ETF holdings, not betting on a fall.
Perpetuals: funding keeps basis small
A perpetual never expires, so nothing forces its price to meet spot on a given date. The funding rate does that job instead. When the perp trades above spot, longs pay shorts, which makes the long side expensive to hold and pulls the perp back toward spot. When it trades below, shorts pay longs.
Because the payment is continuous, a perp's basis usually stays within a few basis points of zero on liquid markets. It is the perp's funding, not its basis, that carries the return: the perp version of cash-and-carry is to hold spot, short the perp and collect positive funding. The basis still matters at the moment you enter and exit, since a trade opened at +10 bps and closed at −10 bps loses 0.2% before funding.
Basis and funding are closely linked. The exchanges calculate funding from a premium index, which is essentially the perp's order-book basis against a spot index, averaged over the funding period. A persistently positive basis leads to positive funding, and very high funding usually means the basis has been wide for a while.
What this site measures
For each perpetual that has a spot market on the same exchange with the same quote currency, for example BTCUSDT perp and BTCUSDT spot on Binance, the basis is the perp price divided by the spot price, minus one. The live box above shows it for BTC and ETH, with each perp's funding rate next to it so you can see the two move together. For contracts that trade in multiples, such as 1000PEPE perps against PEPE spot, the stored history removes the multiplier before comparing.
Hyperliquid's HIP-3 markets (stocks, indices and commodities) have no spot market on the exchange. For them the useful gap is between the perp's mark price and its oracle price, the external reference the market settles funding against. The Hyperliquid stock perps page shows that mark-vs-oracle basis for every HIP-3 market.
How traders use it
- Sentiment. A widening positive basis means buyers are willing to pay up for leveraged longs. A sudden flip to negative during a sell-off shows perp sellers in a hurry.
- Leading side. If the perp moves first and spot follows, the move is driven by leverage; if spot leads, it is driven by real buying or selling.
- Carry and arbitrage. Wide gaps in funding between exchanges, visible on the funding arbitrage page, are usually matched by gaps in basis. The funding rates table shows which perps are paying the most right now.
Limits
- Last prices move tick by tick, so a single reading can be a few bps off in a fast market. Averages over time say more.
- Spot and perp on different exchanges are not directly comparable; this site only pairs markets on the same venue.
- Carry trades have costs: fees, funding that can turn negative, and the risk of liquidation on the short leg.
Checked against the exchanges' own documentation on 28 September 2026: Binance: introduction to funding rates · Hyperliquid docs: funding. Not financial advice.