Fu Peng: Bitcoin perpetual contracts are essentially a system where large investors hold positions and collect rent, while retail investors use leverage to go long and pay fees.

Fu Peng, chief economist of Xinhuo Group, stated in an article published on the X platform that the underlying business model of Bitcoin perpetual contracts is essentially the same as the deferred fees or overnight fees of gold and industrial commodity spot exchanges in traditional finance. Fu Peng pointed out that gold exchanges used to force both long and short positions to pay deferred fees through daily forced liquidation settlements. When retail investors held highly leveraged long positions, these deferred fees became a stable source of revenue for the platform. Currently, Bitcoin platforms rely on perpetual contracts to settle funding rates every 8 hours, with retail investors continuously paying fees to short positions when long positions are dominant. Although the platform does not directly collect these fees, it indirectly generates substantial transaction fees by increasing trading activity, open interest, and liquidity. This model is essentially a business model where large investors or institutions hold long positions and collect rent, retail investors pay fees for leveraged long positions, and the platform indirectly takes a cut.