Funding: how to make money on volatility in a difficult market
Funding is a payment between perpetual futures traders every 8 hours. If the skew is in longs, they pay longs, if everyone shorts, they pay shorts.
🔼 Bull market
We buy an asset on the spot + open a SHORT perpetual for the same amount.
Example: BTC $60k → spot $10k + SHORT perp $10k (leverage x1–x2, margin $6–8k).
At a rate of ~0.01%, we receive payments 3 times a day every 8 hours. We keep it as long as the rate remains positive and the risk of volatility is low.
Bear market
We open a LONG perpetual and keep a large margin reserve in stables. This is not a full hedge, but a carry-trade: the bet compensates for the sideways/rebound risk. At the peak of the panic, funding can give up to ~70-100% per annum.
, When to close
▪️ Funding drops quickly or changes sign
▪️ Increasing volatility (liquidation risk)
⚠️ The risks
▪️ Liquidation in case of price spike
▪️ Funding may turn around
▪️ Exchange risk
Reminder: the task is not to guess the market, but to take a percentage for skewing the crowd
Join the Launchpad with the SpaceX token 🚀
A new Launchpad has launched on MEXC with the SPACEX (PRE) token. Participation in it grants access to placement at a discount to the current market price. The format is familiar: a subscription, a short liquidity lock, and potential allocation for those willing to generate volume and join the pool.
Netrun Testnet 🖥
Netrun is a Solana protocol for creating programmable NFT systems. Assets built on it are not static—they can change and interact with each other.
⌛️ The project has opened enrollment for the testnet—places are limited.
1️⃣Submit an application on their website (https://t.co/plKAjYOTni)
2️⃣Log in to Discord (https://t.co/bhquhIgDfH) and collect roles.
The background is modest, and nothing is said about a drop. We're doing it because it costs us nothing.
Join the Fairground waitlist ⏳
Fairground is an early-stage perp DEX, and they're currently opening the season 0 waitlist. The project is being built by the Forte Protocol team: they've raised $910 million, with investors including a16z, Solana Ventures, and Polygon Studios 💸
What to do:
🟢Go to the website (https://t.co/lFaJCwQAok), connect your wallet, and click "Join the waitlist."
🟢Link your email and join the waitlist.
Due to the large influx of interested participants, emails to Gmail addresses have been interrupted on the website, so registration is temporarily paused, but will reopen soon. Check back periodically—the new season starts in just a few days.
Check out the Polymarket perp waitlist 😇
Polymarket is the most popular prediction market. They've raised about $2 billion in investments at a $9 billion valuation. Now they're launching perps on BTC, gold, and NVDA with up to 10x leverage.
The token was originally planned for late 2025, but it was postponed, and there's still no specific date. If there's a drop, it would be a shame not to reward those who've been trading futures from the start:
🔵Register on Polymarket (https://t.co/yYgP6A4SE5 )
🔵Go to the perps page (https://t.co/UYB8AgJ3KE) and click "Get early access"
Activity is for two minutes. A spot in the queue wouldn't be a bad thing!
Pudgy Penguins' second airdrop? 🐧
Pudgy Penguins have launched PenguBot, a Telegram trading bot with a non-custodial wallet for Solana, Ethereum, and Abstract ✈️
Spot trading, limit orders, and position tracking are all available via bot commands. The first $PENGU airdrop at the end of 2024 was generous, so their new product is worth testing.
🤫 When the bot launched, it contained (https://t.co/bGm1L8qzOS) the /airdrop command with qualification criteria. It was quickly removed, but screenshots have since circulated. The conditions were: a minimum trading volume of 1 SOL and a Pudgy Penguins NFT sticker.
What to do:
1️⃣Log in to PenguBot (https://t.co/usFuwYxHl0), create a wallet, and accumulate at least 1 SOL.
2️⃣Hold an NFT sticker from the collection. Pudgy Penguins - the cheapest 9.2 TON = $13
Airdrop alpha by @pudgypenguins here 👀
Pudgy just launched their new product - Pengu trading bot
But seems like it was launched in a hurry, and one of the commands was /airdrop with all the details
It's been removed now, so looks like someone leaked information about a future airdrop ahead of time 🔥
But I managed to screenshot all the info
To be eligible:
1. Join pengu bot (link in the comments)
2. Hold any Pudgy @ton_blockchain sticker and trade 1 Sol in volume
I shared the link with all eligible NFT collections in the first comment
The cheapest sticker costs ~10 ton (13$)
With these campaign I think stickers can go higher when airdrop will be publicly announced
So I swept 10 Dragon Warrior Po and Grand Master Oogway
Leaked alpha is right there 🫡
The CoW Swap frontend has been compromised —apparently, DNS is also at risk. Avoid visiting the website; all approvals for the protocol should be revoked via https://t.co/2X1v68gdMU 🐮
In the official announcement, the team asked people not to visit their website—and then immediately included a link to it in the same tweet 🤣
Checking out the Jupiter drop 🤑
Jupiter is giving away (https://t.co/Y10fEbO29Z) random rewards — a pool of $200,000 in sponsor tokens, payouts from $1 to $20. There's just one requirement: the wallet must have made swaps through Jupiter Ultra within the last 12 months 😮
What to do:
1️⃣Download Jupiter Mobile or the extension (https://t.co/TXGPzQRqfK) and import the Solana wallet you used for trading.
2️⃣Go to Jupiter itself (https://t.co/m6gkOOrbMj) and click Rewards in the upper right corner.
FCFS deadline: May 15th, but the pool will be filled sooner.
$200,000 in rewards for Jupiter Users!
If you've traded on Jupiter in the last 12 months, we got something for you.
$200K in Mystery rewards. Tokens, surprises, ecosystem rewards randomised, claimable right now.
- Import your wallet to Jupiter Mobile or Extension
- Go to Rewards Hub
- Check if you got any rewards
Rewards distributed until fully claimed or after 31 days.
Just Use Jupiter.
✈️ 4 Crypto Tools on Telegram
Telegram is full of services for various purposes. Below is a list of four that will be especially useful for crypto enthusiasts:
🔵@PlatiVallet_bot (https://t.co/FP0Fn2nBHd) — a wallet for paying for any crypto purchases using QR codes. You pay in USDT, and the seller receives rubles. No P2P or pre-payments — simply scan the code at the store checkout and pay in crypto. A super app for those who hold stablecoins and want to spend them like regular cash on a card.
🔵@BananaGun_bot — a trading bot for fast on-chain trades. Supports EVM networks and Solana: instant buys and sells by contract address, automatic sniping of new listings, limit orders, and copy trading. A tool for those who trade meme coins.
🔵@Tonkeeper is a non-custodial wallet for the TON ecosystem, eliminating the need to download an app. You have your keys and seed phrase. It features storage and transfers of TON and Jetton tokens, NFTs, swaps, staking, and connection to dApps via TON Connect.
🔵@Arkham_official_bot is a Telegram mini-app for on-chain analytics. You set alerts for the wallets you need and receive notifications directly in the messenger. It contains tagged addresses and profiles. A good app for on-chain detectives, convenient for copy-trading individual addresses.
Funding Rate Arbitrage Guide 💸
Funding rates are regular payments between longs and shorts in perp markets. When rates on two exchanges diverge, you can go long on one and short on the other and collect the difference while remaining delta neutral.
What to do:
1️⃣Go to LorisTools (https://t.co/WsQ4BOR9ys), Funding Rates section
2️⃣Select the exchanges you're actually willing to work on
3️⃣Click "Backtest" next to each arbitrage opportunity
4️⃣Set the timeframe to 7 or 30 days and observe the shape of the curve – you want stable growth without wild swings.
Example in the screenshot above: $COW, two positions at $25,000, long on Aster and short on Variational. Over the last 30 days, $829 net after spread expenses. 22.4% APY with no directional risk.
Let's imagine these positions are opened with 3x leverage—$8.5k margin on each exchange, for a total of $17k in real capital. That same $829 net translates into 58% APY. And if you trade through a DEX like Variational, you get points as a bonus 🪂
It's important to maintain a good margin reserve on both exchanges. Rebalance when you go into the red, and set limit orders with SL/TP so that both positions close at similar prices during a sharp move.
A 40x pump in just a week 🔼
$RAVE, a token no one had heard of a week ago, has surged by 4,110%—its FDV is now $9 billion (top 41 MCs). Almost all futures volume is concentrated on Binance and OKX, while spot is being pumped through Coinbase, Gate, and Bitget. Just four wallets hold 93% of the supply, while the top 10 hold 97%.
🔍 The pattern is very similar to what happened with $MYX in September—another little-known token, also experiencing a sharp pump to an insanely high market cap, followed by a 99% dump. Such random pumps happen at least a few times each cycle.
Obviously, a $9 billion market cap isn't about fundamentals; it's a misunderstanding, and it shouldn't be worth $50 million. But that's precisely what makes situations like this dangerous. While the smart guys short the "obviously overvalued" token, they're waiting for liquidations or adding margin to a position that's going against them every day.
❗️ Most people lose money on regular futures. Trying to short a similar manipulation is even more likely to result in losses. If you do decide to trade with a smart nut, use isolated margin only. No cross-positions.
LlamaAI by DefiLlama is available for free
DefiLlama has temporarily opened access to LlamaAI (https://t.co/omtPEFHNLG) – previously, the tool was only available to Pro subscribers.
🔍 DefiLlama is the leading DeFi data aggregator. LlamaAI (https://t.co/Pbo6lW7KT6) is their AI built on top of this database. It's the perfect tool for those who follow the market.
The screenshot shows my test request – I asked to plot a chart of trading fees for top-performing DEXs. I checked, and all the numbers are accurate 📊
It's still free – check it out, it's a good way to see if it's worth the $49/month subscription.
🖥 Join the Tempo Nodes Whitelist
Tempo Nodes is an experimental passive income protocol built on the Tempo network.
The Tempo network (https://t.co/pxUTiSZAbx) is a Layer 1 blockchain for payments, designed for real money and businesses, with an investment round (https://t.co/Vi81uGKJmh) of $500 million from Tier 1 funds.
The project is in its very early stages and hasn't yet attracted much attention. You can apply for the Whitelist now to potentially host a node.
➡️ Whitelist (https://t.co/5lcVt9dOSE).
It's unclear how closely the project is connected to the Tempo network team itself, given its substantial investment, but still, the activity doesn't require much time or expense, so you can register on Antifomo 🤝
How to make ChatGPT output data in a market terminal format 🫡
This prompt helps you get a quick overview of financial markets:
▪️ Collects asset prices and analyzes trends
▪️ Compiles a list of key events influencing markets
▪️ Provides recommendations for future price movements
You are a macro and cross-market analyst. Prepare a morning market brief in terminal style: short, to the point, no fluff, no long explanations.
Analyze as a single system:
S&P 500
Gold
DXY
Brent
BTC
ETH
Goal: Provide a clear picture of market conditions, key triggers, intermarket relationships, and risk points in 1-2 minutes.
Data Rules
Use a single time snapshot for all assets.
Be sure to include the date, time, time zone, and price type at the beginning. Don't mix current price, last close, futures, premarket, and intraday high/low in a single briefing.
If the exact price isn't confirmed, indicate range or low confidence.
Response Format
SNAPSHOT
Date / time / time zone / price type.
TRIGGERS (1-3)
Only specific events from the last 24 hours.
Format: event → market reaction.
REGIME
2-3 sentences: current market conditions + main driver.
LEADER / LAGGARD / BAROMETER
Leader:
Laggard:
Barometer:
24H SHIFT
3-5 points: only what really changed the picture.
CROSS-ASSET READ
3-5 short points:
what confirms the conditions;
what contradicts the conditions;
where the main divergence occurs.
ASSETS
One line per asset, formatted:
[Asset] | price/change | Specific daily trigger or probable driver | value for mode | 1-3D view: bullish / bearish / neutral
DIVERGENCES
Only if present.
Maximum 3 short points.
RISKS TODAY
3 points maximum.
CONFIRMATION ZONES
2-3 points: where to look for confirmation of a move or signs of a false move today.
INVALIDATION
3 specific signs that break the main scenario.
PRE-TRADE CHECKLIST
5 short points without explanation.
Strict Restrictions
Write in terminal / desk note style.
No introductory phrases, platitudes, or news rehash.
1-2 lines per block maximum.
For assets – strictly one line per asset.
If the reason for the move is not obvious, write the probable driver rather than inventing a confident explanation.
Do not give direct buy/sell recommendations. Main priority: event → reaction → intermarket correlation → scenario risk.
Recommendation: Works best with the GPT-5.4 Thinking model; the prompt can be easily adjusted to suit your specific priorities.
Save the prompt and analyze the markets.
By trading on CEX, you're missing out on potential profits 🪙
A few years ago, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) had no chance of competing with centralized exchanges (CEXs) in terms of liquidity, number of available trading pairs, and convenience. That's changed.
👍 Now on Hyperliquid (https://t.co/aqlibLNbCO), many trading pairs are even more liquid than on Binance or Bybit. Oil futures, stocks, indices, gold, and the spot market for top coins—it's all there, with no KYC, no random balance freezes, and no requests to verify the origin of funds.
Regular exchanges will never reward you with their shares for trading activity. DEXs are a different story. In November 2024, Hyperliquid distributed the largest airdrop to its users in the history of crypto (currently worth $12 billion). Successful traders received a retroactive lifechange on top of their earnings, and those who drained their balances received cashback.
🤨 Currently, 38.8% of HYPE's total supply is still reserved for community rewards, so perhaps those who trade there will still get something. If you're already trading, why not somewhere that could at least theoretically pay you for it?
How to start trading 👇
1️⃣ You only need stablecoins and an EVM web3 wallet like Metamask or Rabby
2️⃣ Top up your USDC address on the Arbitrum network
3️⃣ Create an account on Hyperliquid (https://t.co/aqlibLNbCO), click "Deposit" on the bottom right, and deposit USDC