A perpetual future has no expiry, so exchanges use a periodic payment to tether it to spot. Every venue samples the premium between the perpetual and the index price. If the perp trades above spot, longs pay shorts. Below spot, shorts pay longs. The rate is applied to your notional at fixed intervals: hourly on Kraken, and every 8 hours on Binance, Bitget and Gate for most contracts.
A rate of 0.01% looks trivial until you multiply it out. Per eight hours that is 0.03% a day, roughly 11% a year. Per hour it is 0.24% a day, or about 88% a year. Comparing raw per-period numbers across venues with different intervals is the most common mistake in this market.
Positioning. When traders crowd into longs the perp trades at a premium and the rate turns positive, paying shorts to take the other side. Liquidations, new listings and news can swing the rate by a factor of ten within hours, which is why a single snapshot is never enough to plan a trade.
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