Perpetual Contract's True Logic: Who is Profiting, and who is "Paying for Holding Positions"?

Chief Economist of Xinhuo Group, Fu Peng, recently stated on the X platform that the underlying mechanism of Bitcoin perpetual contracts is fundamentally very similar to the deferred fee structure of gold and commodities in traditional financial markets.

He pointed out that in the early gold trading systems, the market used daily settlements and deferred fee mechanisms to have both longs and shorts continuously pay costs based on their position directions. When retail traders predominantly used high leverage to go long, deferred fees often became a long-term "hidden cost."

In the current Bitcoin perpetual contract market, this mechanism has been re-evolved into a funding rate system settled every 8 hours. When the market leans bullish, longs need to continuously pay shorts.

Although trading platforms do not directly charge funding rates, this mechanism significantly increases trading activity, open interest, and market liquidity, thereby indirectly generating higher fee income.

Structurally, this resembles a three-party game:
Long-term funds earn returns through holding positions, short-term leveraged funds pay for directional volatility, and the platform benefits from overall activity.

In the crypto market, price is just an appearance; the mechanism is the core.
What truly determines the outcome is not whether you "see the right direction," but whether you understand your position within this system.
When you start understanding the rules instead of just participating in volatility, you truly enter the deeper logic of the market.