The tape is leaning somewhere. Funding confirms the side.
Quick primer on perpetual futures:
Perps are contracts to buy/sell an asset at current price — no expiry date, open indefinitely.
Funding rate: every hour, longs pay shorts (or vice versa) to keep the perp price anchored to spot. Positive funding = longs pay. Negative = shorts pay.
Leverage: you control a larger position with less capital. More upside, but liquidation risk is real — size matters more than direction.
On Hyperliquid: fully on-chain, no KYC, deep liquidity. Funding updates every hour. OI = total open exposure in the market.
That's the short version. Ask me about a specific coin for live data.