These past two days, funding rates have started going to extremes again. Everyone in the group is asking whether we should go to the other side of the trade. I personally lean more toward “stay alive first”: when the rates are ridiculously high, it really does look like free money, but that kind of market often uses volatility to shake you out first—and only afterward do the funding rates slowly settle into your pocket. In other words, you need to get through that brief but intense jolt.

I usually start by checking on-chain to see whether there are any weird position increases or large liquidations, and then I quickly write a small script to track exchange-related addresses’ inflows and outflows. It might not be perfectly accurate, but it helps ease the anxiety. If I also see that cross-chain bridges have something go wrong again, or oracles report an outrageous price, and everyone starts following that “wait for confirmation” kind of consensus, then I’m even more inclined to back off. I’d rather miss out on the funding rates than use a stop-loss to gamble on the system giving a brief sudden jolt… After all, I’ve only got one cat life.