What Is a Funding Rate? Perps vs a Fixed Rate on Nolus

A funding rate is a fee that the two sides of a perpetual futures contract pay each other at set times, to keep the contract's price close to the price of the asset itself.

A perpetual futures contract, or perp, lets you bet on a price without owning the asset, and with no end date. Betting on a rise is called going long. When more people are betting on a rise, the perp's price drifts above the asset's real market price (the spot price), and the people betting on a rise pay a fee to the people betting on a fall. When more people bet on a fall, it flips. On the venues in this article the fee is worked out again every hour, so nobody can tell you in advance what it will cost you next week.

This article follows one SOL position on Nolus, which charges no funding at all, and on two perps venues that charge it every hour: Hyperliquid, the venue behind the perps in the Phantom wallet, and Pacifica. On Nolus you borrow part of the money for your position, and you pay interest on that loan at a rate fixed the day you open. Both perps venues publish their hourly fees, so the numbers below are what a real position paid. Jupiter Perps, which charges a borrowing fee instead of funding, comes up once, for contrast.

How Funding Rates Work

Three things decide what funding costs you.

Which side pays. When more people are betting on a rise, the people betting on a rise pay. When more are betting on a fall, the other side pays them. If you are betting on a rise, that second case usually means the market is moving against you, so it is not a perk.

How often. Every hour on both venues. Jupiter Perps works differently: on its SOL market it charges an hourly borrowing fee instead of funding, which goes up as more of its money is lent out. This article sticks to funding.

On how much. Funding is charged on the whole position, not just the part you borrowed. Put $1,000 into a 2.5x SOL position and it is worth $2,500, so every hourly fee is a slice of $2,500. Nolus works differently: the same $1,000 at 2.5x borrows $1,500, and interest is charged on that $1,500 only.

When the market is calm, the rate sits at a small default. It goes up when many people bet on a rise and down when many bet on a fall. Even the default adds up: on this $2,500 position it comes to about $22.50 a month, more than the $9.86 the same position paid on Nolus in September.

How Funding Swings

Because the fee changes every hour, the cost of holding the same position changes from month to month. Over the past year, October 2025 to September 2026, the most expensive month for this $2,500 SOL position cost $18.44 on Hyperliquid, in August 2026, and $18.24 on Pacifica, in July 2026. Even those months came in under the $22.50 a month at the default, because for part of each month more people were betting on a fall, which pulls the rate below it. Other months cost much less for the same reason, which is a market moving against the position rather than a saving.

The year before looked very different. In November 2024 the same position on Hyperliquid cost $89.78 in funding, in a single month. Pacifica opened in June 2025, so it has no record for that month. Nothing about one month tells you what the next one will cost.

A Month on Perps vs a Fixed Rate

Now follow one position through September 2026. It is the same trade the leveraged SOL cost comparison prices across Solana lending apps: you put in $1,000 on September 1 and open a 2.5x position on SOL, with SOL at about $103, and hold it to the end of the month. On each perps venue the fee is worked out every hour. On Nolus the position borrows $1,500 at 8.0% a year, the rate quoted at midnight UTC on September 1, and that rate stays the same while the position is open.

Nolus has only been on Solana since late August 2026, so the Nolus column shows this one position at the rate it got, not a year of Nolus history.

The figures here are holding costs alone; Hyperliquid fees adds what opening and closing the same position costs, on Hyperliquid directly, through Phantom and on Nolus.

In September, Nolus landed between the two venues. Hyperliquid cost more, and Pacifica cost less: $7.50 against $9.86. That is the honest trade-off. In calmer months a perp can cost less than a fixed rate. What the fixed rate buys is knowing your cost on day one: the Nolus number was shown when the position was opened, while the perps numbers were known only after the month was over.

The top of the light part of each perps bar is that venue's most expensive month of the past year, close to twice what the Nolus position cost. The rate a new Nolus position gets depends on how busy the lending pool is on the day you open: under the pool's settings on September 1, this position could have cost anywhere from $9.25 to $17.47 for a month like September. Whatever rate you get, it stays the same until you close, so a month like November 2024 on Hyperliquid cannot happen to an open Nolus position.

When Each Fits

A perp fits when:

• You hold for hours or days, so funding is small next to the price move you are after.
• You want more leverage: both venues offer up to 20x on SOL, against up to 5x on Nolus.
• You will watch the fee and close when it climbs.

Nolus fits when:

• You hold for weeks or months and want to know your cost on the day you open. The rate is fixed at open and there are no funding fees, so a quiet month and a busy one cost the same. There is also nothing to pay to open or close: Nolus's own fee is already part of the rate.
• You want the position to hold the asset. A Nolus position holds real SOL, so when you close you can pay off the $1,500 and keep the SOL, or settle into stablecoins.
• You hold more than one position. Every Nolus position is isolated, so a liquidation on one never affects another; cross margin vs isolated margin shows what that changes when the market turns.
• You want liquidations to start small. A liquidation is when a position is sold off because the price fell too far. If SOL falls far enough, Nolus first sells only part of the position, with a $0 penalty on a partial liquidation. A full liquidation can still happen; how Nolus liquidations work explains when each one does.

What you are choosing between is who carries the uncertainty. On a perp you do, hour by hour. On Nolus the rate is fixed the day you open, there are no funding fees and nothing to pay to get in or out, interest runs only on the part you borrow, the position holds the SOL itself, and the penalty is $0 on a partial liquidation. What Nolus gives up is the calmer months, when a perp can cost less than a fixed rate.

Sources

• Hyperliquid: Funding and the info API (fundingHistory)
• Pacifica: Funding Rates and Get Historical Funding
• Phantom: Phantom Perps
• Jupiter Perps: Fees
• Nolus: Borrowing and Liquidations & risk
• Funding is every hourly SOL fee each venue charged from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026 (on Hyperliquid also from October 1, 2024), read from its public API on October 19, 2026 and added up by calendar month on a $2,500 position; an hour with no record counts as zero. The Nolus rate is the one the protocol quoted for this position at 00:00 UTC on September 1, 2026, read from on-chain state, with SOL at $103.