RA
Why crypto perps overcharge longs?
Ramil argues that nearly all major perpetual exchanges use a frozen interest-rate (IR) component of 0.01% per 8 hours (10.95% APR) inherited from BitMEX's March 2017 Bitfinex lending average—a temporary measure that became permanent industry standard. The fixed IR overcharges longs by 5-7 percentage points versus actual carry costs (BTC fair IR ~4.3%, ETH ~2.1%), with a formula "dead zone" clamp that prevents market correction, structurally enriching shorts and enabling delta-neutral harvesting strategies like Ethena. Dropping the clamp and setting per-market IRs calibrated to current borrowing rates would restore proper spot-perp convergence.