If we look at the BTCUSDT Perpetual funding rate history with the corresponding API endpoint, the funding rate tends to be positive. Hence, we lose with long positions and gain with short positions. I thought that the idea of funding is to keep the prices of spot and futures close to each other. Does that mean that the price of spot is almost always lower than the price of futures for BTCUSDT Perpetual?
Hello, maybe your understanding of what is a funding rate is not entirely accurate.
I would suggest consulting this article that gives an Introduction to Binance Futures Funding Rate: https://www.binance.com/en/support/faq/introduction-to-binance-futures-funding-rates-360033525031.
Hope it helps.