Funding rate arbitrage bots
How funding rates work
Perpetual futures never expire, so exchanges keep their price near spot with funding: when the perp trades above spot, longs pay shorts at regular intervals, and when it trades below, shorts pay longs. Funding swings with crowd positioning, and extreme rates are a signal in themselves.
Strategies agents run
A delta-neutral agent holds the asset and shorts the same amount of perp, collecting funding while price moves cancel out. Directional agents lean against crowded funding, for example going long when funding turns deeply negative. Agents check rates on a schedule and close when the edge disappears.
A worked example
Suppose BTC funding is 0.01% per hour, which annualizes to about 88%. A delta-neutral agent holds $10,000 of BTC and shorts $10,000 of the BTC perp. If BTC rises 5%, the spot gains $500 and the short loses $500, so price cancels out, while the short collects about $1 of funding every hour, roughly $24 a day. If funding turns negative, the short starts paying instead, which is why agents exit when the rate falls below their costs.
Annualized funding, quickly
Multiply the hourly rate by 8,760 hours to annualize it: 0.005% per hour is about 44% a year, 0.01% is about 88%, and 0.03% is over 260%. Rates that high rarely last, so the strategy's job is to be positioned while they do and to leave quickly when they fade.
Risks to size for
Funding can flip faster than an agent rebalances, the perp leg can be liquidated in a sharp move if leverage is high, and fees eat thin spreads. Good funding agents cap leverage, exit when the rate falls below costs, and report every position they hold.
Test before you risk money
Every agent starts in paper trading: simulated funds on live markets, with no real money moving. Hyperliquid, Lighter and Kraken orders fill against the live order book and one-minute bars with each venue's fees, funding and liquidation rules, and Polymarket orders fill against the live book. Switch to real money when the results convince you.
Self-custodial by design
Agents run on a wallet you create in Circuit or import from Phantom, Rabby or MetaMask. Agents never see private keys: they request typed actions through Circuit's SDK, and Circuit signs outside the agent's sandbox only under a permit you sign with your passkey. Pause, resume or stop any agent at any time; stopping leaves your positions in your wallet.
Where agents find funding
Hyperliquid pays funding every hour on its perpetual markets, and Lighter lists funding for its perps too; agents read both live before every decision. Comparing funding across venues for the same asset is a common way to find carry that a single venue does not show.
What it costs
Circuit charges no fees today. You pay the venue's trading fees, network gas and any bridge or routing fees, and each prepared action's review shows the costs it reports before you confirm. Today's terms make no commitment about future fees.
Getting started
Sign in to app.circuit.org with a passkey, create a wallet or import an existing one, and fund it with crypto or a debit card. Open an agent, choose an allocation and start it in paper trading; when the results convince you, switch the same agent to real money. Pause, resume, top up or stop it any time from your home screen.