Data definitions & methodology
The canonical definition of every metric on PerpFinder — what the number means, exactly how it is computed, and how often it refreshes.
What we cover, and how often
13 datasets| Dataset | Venues | Refresh |
|---|---|---|
| Perp DEX rankings | 48 ranked DEXes | every 1–5 minutes |
| CEX profiles | 22 CEX profiles | every 1–5 minutes |
| Venue directory (/exchanges) | 70 profiles | every 1–5 minutes |
| Funding rates | 27 venues | every 2 minutes |
| Funding sweeps (stored series) | 27 venues | every 15 minutes |
| Perp execution cost | 49 venues | every 25 to 30 seconds |
| Spot execution cost | 21 venues | every 25 to 30 seconds |
| Open interest | 20+ venues | every 15 minutes |
| Options and implied volatility | Deribit | every 2 minutes |
| Volume quality | 40+ venues | every 6 hours |
| MiCA register | 33 entries | twice daily, scheduled 00:10 and 12:10 UTC — GitHub Actions can delay a run by hours, so the capture time shown is the real one |
| Referral deals | 55 exchanges | on each link check |
| Daily history snapshot | 50+ | twice daily, scheduled 00:10 and 12:10 UTC — GitHub Actions can delay a run by hours, so the capture time shown is the real one |
On this page
Funding rate
A funding rate is the periodic payment between long and short positions that keeps a perpetual futures price near its index price. When the rate is positive, longs pay shorts.
Methodology: Pulled live from each exchange’s public API (predicted/current rate for the upcoming interval). Rates are shown per exchange interval (typically 8h, some 1h) and are NOT re-annualized in tables unless labelled as such.
Update cadence: Refreshed every 60–300 seconds
Shown on: /tools/funding-rates · /asset/{symbol} · /perps/{venue}
Open interest (OI)
The total notional value of all outstanding perpetual futures positions on a venue — one side counted, in USD.
Methodology: CEX OI is fetched directly from each exchange’s public API (contracts × mark price where the API reports contracts). DEX OI comes from on-chain venue APIs or DefiLlama’s open-interest dimension. The aggregate "Total perp OI" sums CEX + DEX — a combined figure most trackers do not publish.
Update cadence: Refreshed every 60–300 seconds; daily snapshot committed to history
Shown on: /open-interest · /tools/open-interest · /asset/{symbol}
Reported volume (24h/7d/30d)
Reported volume is the trading volume that the venue or its data source publishes, in USD notional, for the last 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days.
Methodology: CEX perpetual/futures volume comes from each exchange’s public derivatives ticker API; spot and margin are excluded. DEX volume comes from DefiLlama’s derivatives dimension. 24h is live; CEX 7d/30d is shown only when our rolling daily snapshot is no more than 36 hours old. Reported volume is not adjusted for wash trading or zero-fee inflation.
Update cadence: Refreshed every 5–15 minutes; daily snapshot committed to history
Shown on: /perps · /tools/volume
Bid-ask spread
The spread is the gap between the best bid and the best ask, in basis points (bps) of the mid price. A market order pays half of the spread.
Methodology: Computed from a live order-book snapshot per venue: (bestAsk − bestBid) / midPrice, halved for a one-way fill and expressed in bps.
Update cadence: Live snapshot per request (25s engine cache, 30s CDN window)
Shown on: /tools/cost-comparison
Slippage (price impact)
Slippage (price impact) is the extra cost of an order that fills through more than one price level, measured beyond the best quote. A larger order has more price impact.
Methodology: Order-book rows simulate the selected USD size against a live depth snapshot. PerpFinder calculates the volume-weighted average price (VWAP). Price impact is the VWAP impact beyond the best quote. The result excludes half the bid-ask spread because the total adds that component separately. A row that cannot fill the size inside 2 percent of the touch shows no slippage figure. Its partial-fill numbers stay in a separate partial field and are not comparable with a complete fill. Each row also states depthFetchedUsd, which is the in-band depth PerpFinder could read. Pool and oracle rows use documented or live adverse price impact for a position increase when the source supplies it. Missing impact remains unavailable. The system does not convert it to zero. Fees are separate and can use a maker/taker rate or a published position fee.
Update cadence: Per request; order books use a cache of 25 seconds and a CDN window of 30 seconds
Shown on: /tools/cost-comparison
Total trading cost (all-in cost)
Total trading cost (all-in cost) is the selected-side cost of one order at a given size: the fee plus half of the spread plus the price impact, in bps and USD.
Methodology: selected_side_cost_bps = fee_bps + half_spread_bps + price_impact_bps. Each row uses only the components supported by that venue and source. Maker/taker schedules use the selected order type. Position-fee venues use the published position fee for the selected action. A VIP tier or mapped referral discount applies only when the user selects it. Funding, borrowing, rollover, network fees, and later closing costs are not included unless the row names that component. A row that cannot fill the order shows no total cost at all. PerpFinder also labels each order-book row with a depth confidence. Low confidence means the displayed depth is larger than the venue open interest or the deepest reference book can support, so the row ranks after the rows PerpFinder could confirm.
Update cadence: Per request; freshness depends on the source named for each row
Shown on: /tools/cost-comparison
Adjusted volume (reported vs adjusted)
Adjusted volume is the reported volume of the tracked venues with each held-out venue removed. PerpFinder does not scale, replace or estimate a venue figure.
Methodology: A venue is held out when one of three rules applies. Rule 1: the venue is in the unverified tier. Rule 2: its 24h figure is more than 3 times its own median of the 7 stored days before it. Rule 3: for a CEX, no test order from $10,000 filled on both its BTC and ETH books in the newest volume-quality sweep. Each held-out venue keeps its reported figure and a dated reason. These are measurements, not accusations.
Update cadence: Daily capture; the depth rule uses the newest volume-quality sweep
Shown on: /perp-volume-ranking · /research/normalized-exchange-volume
Funding interval
The funding interval is the time between two funding settlements on one market, for example 1 hour or 8 hours. A rate always belongs to its interval.
Methodology: PerpFinder keeps the raw rate and the interval that the venue reports for each market. To compare venues, it divides the raw rate by the interval to get a rate per hour. A market with no reported interval gets no rate. When only the interval request fails, the last reported interval (at most 24 hours old) is used and labeled "last-known".
Update cadence: With each funding read
Shown on: /funding-rates · /tools/funding-rate-calculator · /funding-rates/methodology
Maintenance margin
Maintenance margin is the minimum margin that an open position must keep. When the position equity falls to this level, the venue liquidates the position.
Methodology: Each venue publishes a tier table: a larger position uses a higher maintenance margin rate. The liquidation price calculator reads the tables of Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Aster, Bitget, Gate.io and MEXC from their public endpoints. The liquidation price solves equity = maintenance margin at the mark price. Fees, funding and other open positions are not included.
Update cadence: Tier tables are read by a scheduled script; prices are live
Shown on: /tools/liquidation-price-calculator · /tools/hyperliquid-liquidation-calculator
Builder fee
A builder fee is the fee that a wallet or trading app adds to each Hyperliquid perps fill that it sends with a builder code. It is in addition to the Hyperliquid fee.
Methodology: PerpFinder sums the builder_fee field and the notional (price × size) of every fill in the public Hyperliquid builder-fill files for each mapped builder address. The added fee in bps is the builder fees divided by the notional, over the newest window of up to 7 UTC days.
Update cadence: Daily
Shown on: /trading-apps
VIP fee tier
The maker/taker schedule a CEX grants at a given 30-day trading volume, per that exchange’s published ladder.
Methodology: Each exchange’s full published VIP ladder is stored verbatim (volume thresholds → maker/taker) and verified against the exchange’s fee page. The simulator picks the tier your entered 30-day volume qualifies for.
Update cadence: Verified manually; CI guard blocks drift between datasets
Shown on: /tools/vip-fees · /tools/cost-comparison
Referral discount
The fee reduction (usually rebated) a new account gets when signing up through a partner link, as a fraction of the trading fee.
Methodology: Rates reflect the actual kickback configured in each partner program for PerpFinder’s links — they are program-specific settings, not public defaults. Applied after any VIP tier in the cost model. PerpFinder earns a commission on referred accounts; rankings are never affected.
Update cadence: Operator-maintained
Shown on: /deals · /tools/cost-comparison
Liquidations (24h)
The USD notional of leveraged positions force-closed by exchanges’ risk engines over the trailing window, split long vs short.
Methodology: Aggregated across major CEX and DEX venues from liquidation feeds (Coinalyze plus venue APIs). CEX liquidation prints are known to be under-reported by some venues; treat absolute totals as a floor.
Update cadence: Refreshed every 60–300 seconds
Shown on: /tools/liquidations
Long/short ratio
The balance of long vs short positioning among accounts (or notional) on a venue, as published by that venue.
Methodology: Venue-reported ratios (account-based unless noted). Definitions differ per exchange — ratios are comparable over time on one venue, not directly across venues.
Update cadence: Refreshed every 5 minutes
Shown on: /tools/long-short
TVL (total value locked)
The USD value of assets deposited in a DEX’s contracts (vaults, margin, LP pools) — a solvency/liquidity signal, not a volume signal.
Methodology: From DefiLlama’s TVL dataset per protocol (their open-source adapters). CEXs have reserves, not TVL; the two are never mixed in one column.
Update cadence: Refreshed hourly
Shown on: /tvl · /perps/{venue}
Protocol fees & revenue
Fees = what traders paid the protocol over the window; revenue = the share kept by the protocol/token holders after supply-side payouts.
Methodology: DEX fees are user fees reported by DefiLlama. CEX fee revenue is not public, so PerpFinder shows an estimated gross perpetual trading fee: matched notional × (maker rate + taker rate), with a transparent blend across the venue’s published 30-day VIP ladder and base-to-deep-tier bounds in the API. Spot, margin, options, funding, liquidation fees and non-trading revenue are excluded.
Update cadence: Refreshed every 15 minutes
Shown on: /fees/generated
Fear & Greed Index
A 0–100 composite of market sentiment (volatility, momentum, dominance, social signals); 0 = extreme fear, 100 = extreme greed.
Methodology: Sourced from alternative.me’s published index; shown with its own history.
Update cadence: Daily
Shown on: /tools/fear-greed
Spotted an error or a venue where our number disagrees with yours? See how we test for the verification process, or use the data via the free public API — attribution “Data: PerpFinder” appreciated.