I ran the Golden Cross (50/200 SMA) on BTCUSDT perps. 3x long. Binance data, Sept 2019 → today.
Ignoring funding: +2,003%
Charging real Binance funding: +359%
Same strategy. Same entries. Same exits. Same six trades. The gap is $96,561 in funding payments.
Why it's so big: BTCUSDT funding has averaged 0.0106% per 8h settlement since 2019 — about 11.6% a year. Sounds like nothing. At 3x leverage on full equity that's roughly 35% of your account per year, and the Golden Cross holds for months at a time.
You pay rent on the position the entire time you're right.
It hits the downside too. Max drawdown goes from −81.6% to −90.4%. Funding doesn't just shave the top off your returns, it digs the hole deeper.
Most backtest tools treat a perp like spot. No funding, no liquidation price, no margin mechanics. Then people go live at 3x and can't work out where the money went.
Two caveats before anyone accuses me of selling a dream: six trades is a tiny sample, and a −90% drawdownld trade. That's the point. This is what the honest version looks like.
I built a no-code backtester that charges the real funding history from the exchange you pick. Free to try check comments 👇