Continuous vs 8-hour snapshot breakdown
| Metrico | Valore |
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Same long-run total, very different short-run behavior
It's tempting to think continuous funding must cost more or less than 8-hour funding overall — it doesn't, for a fixed-size position held across many complete windows. A given annualized rate applied continuously every second sums to the exact same total as that same rate applied in three lumps a day, because funding is a direct cash transfer between longs and shorts, not something that compounds back into your position. The entire practical difference lives in edge cases: partial windows, and the exact instant you open or close relative to a snapshot.
The starkest case is the sub-window trade above: open and fully close within a single 8-hour period under snapshot funding, and you were never present at either boundary snapshot — you owe exactly $0 funding no matter the rate or size. Under continuous accrual, that same trade owes a pro-rated share for every second it was open. This is precisely why "funding sniping" (closing right before a snapshot, reopening right after) works on 8-hour-funding venues and is structurally pointless on continuous-funding ones — there's no discrete instant to time around.
For longer, multi-day holds the two models converge to the same total funding paid — the calculator's "snapshots crossed" field lets you see that convergence directly by setting it to the number of full 8-hour windows a longer trade actually spans.
Domande frequenti
What is continuous (per-block) funding and how is it different from 8-hour funding?
Traditional perpetual funding settles at fixed snapshots — usually every 8 hours, 3 times a day — where the exchange looks at your position size at that exact instant and charges or pays funding for the interval since the last snapshot. Continuous (per-block) funding, adopted by several 2026-era perp DEXs, instead accrues funding every block (often every few seconds) proportional to however long and how large your position was during that block. The total funding paid over a full, unbroken holding period is the same either way for a fixed position size — the difference shows up entirely in partial-period and timing-sensitive scenarios.
Why could I pay $0 funding under 8-hour snapshots but owe money under continuous funding for the same trade?
Under 8-hour snapshot funding, if you open and fully close a position entirely within one funding window — say you're in for 90 minutes between two snapshot timestamps — you are never present at either snapshot, so you owe literally $0 funding for that trade no matter how large the position or how extreme the rate. Under continuous funding, funding accrues by the second the entire time you're in the position, so that same 90-minute trade would owe a pro-rated share of the funding rate for the time it was actually open. This calculator's "sub-window capture" scenario is exactly that case.
What is "funding sniping" and does continuous funding stop it?
Funding sniping is closing a position right before a snapshot timestamp specifically to avoid paying funding, then reopening it moments later once the snapshot has passed — a well-known tactic on 8-hour-funding exchanges, though round-trip trading fees and slippage from doing this repeatedly often eat more than the funding saved. Continuous funding removes the tactic's payoff entirely: because funding accrues every block rather than at a knowable fixed instant, there's no specific moment to snipe around — closing 1 second before or after any given block changes your funding bill by essentially nothing.
Does continuous funding change the TOTAL funding cost for a position I hold for days?
No, not for a position of constant size held across many full funding windows — the same annualized rate applied continuously or in three daily lumps sums to the same total cost over time, because funding is a cash transfer rather than something that compounds back into your position size. The practical difference is entirely about timing: payment smoothness (small continuous nudges to unrealized PnL vs three larger periodic hits) and the elimination of snapshot-window arbitrage on short-duration trades, not the long-run total for a buy-and-hold-style position.
Which exchanges use continuous vs 8-hour funding?
Most established centralized and decentralized perpetual exchanges (Binance, Bybit, OKX, and most 2023-and-earlier DEXs) still use fixed-interval funding, commonly every 8 hours or sometimes every 1 hour. A newer wave of 2025-2026 perp DEXs has moved toward continuous or per-block funding accrual as part of a broader push toward institutional-grade market structure — check each specific venue's documentation, since this calculator models the general mechanic rather than any one exchange's exact implementation.