Fu Peng: The essence of Bitcoin perpetual contracts is large traders holding positions to collect rent, while retail traders use leverage to go long and pay fees.

Odaily Planet Daily News reports that Fu Peng, Chief Economist of New Fire Group, stated on the X platform that the underlying business model of Bitcoin perpetual contracts is essentially the same as the deferred or overnight fees in traditional financial gold and industrial commodity spot exchanges. Fu Peng pointed out that gold exchanges once enforced daily forced liquidations to settle and made both long and short sides pay deferred fees. When retail investors hold high-leverage long positions, the deferred fees become a stable source of income for the platform.

Today, Bitcoin platforms rely on funding rates settled every 8 hours for perpetual contracts. When longs dominate, retail investors continuously pay fees to shorts. Although the platform does not directly charge this fee, it uses it to boost trading activity, open interest, and liquidity, indirectly earning a large amount of transaction fees. The core of this model is a business pattern where large traders or institutions hold long-term positions to collect rent, retail traders pay for leverage longs, and the platform indirectly siphons off fees.