Basis — Indicators and Strategies

Crypto Futures Basis Tracker (Annualized)🧩 What is Basis Arbitrage Basis arbitrage is a market-neutral trading strategy that exploits the price difference between a cryptocurrency’s spot and its futures markets. When futures trade above spot (called contango), traders can buy spot and short futures, locking in a potential yield. When futures trade below spot (backwardation), the reverse applies — short spot and go long futures. The yield earned (or cost paid) by holding this position until expiry is called the basis. Expressing it as an annualized percentage allows comparison across different contract maturities. ⚙️ How the Indicator Works This tool calculates the annualized basis for up to 10 cryptocurrency futures against a chosen spot price. You select one spot symbol (e.g., BITSTAMP:BTCUSD) and up to 10 futures symbols (e.g., DERIBIT:BTCUSD07X2025, DERIBIT:BTCUSD14X2025, etc.). The script automatically computes the days-to-expiry (DTE) and the annualized basis for each future. A table displays for each contract: symbol, expiry date, DTE, last price, and annualized basis (%) — making it easy to compare the forward curve across maturities. ⚠️ Risks and Limitations While basis arbitrage is often considered low-risk, it’s not risk-free: Funding and financing costs can erode returns, especially when borrowing or using leverage. Exchange or counterparty risk — if one leg of the trade fails (e.g., exchange default, margin liquidation), the hedge breaks. Execution and timing risk — the basis can tighten or invert before both legs are opened. Liquidity differences — thin futures may have large bid-ask spreads or slippage. Use this indicator for analysis and monitoring, not as an automated trading signal. Disclaimer: Please remember that past performance may not be indicative of future results. Due to various factors, including changing market conditions, the strategy may no longer perform as well as in historical backtesting. This post and the script don't provide any financial advice.

Spot Premium with ROC Description: This indicator tracks the spot premium of BTC by comparing the perpetual futures price (perp) from Binance against the spot price on Coinbase. The histogram displays the price difference (spot minus perp) with green bars when spot is higher and red when perp carries a premium. The Rate of Change (ROC) line measures how quickly this premium shifts, with an option to normalize fluctuations for greater stability. Implications & Possible Use Cases: • Market Sentiment Gauge: A sustained positive premium often indicates bullish sentiment, while a discount can signal bearish bias. • Arbitrage Signals: Significant divergences between perp and spot may present short-term arbitrage opportunities across exchanges. • Risk Management & Hedging: Traders can align derivatives and spot positions when premiums deviate sharply, reducing funding cost exposures. • Funding Rate Insights: Since perp funding rates tend to follow premium levels, this indicator can act as an early warning for funding spikes. • Trend Confirmation: Use the normalized ROC to confirm continuation or reversal of premium trends, filtering out noise around small diff values. Let me know if you would like additional features.

Binance Basis Oscillator Binance Basis Oscillator illustrates the premium or discount between Binance spot vs perps. This indicates whether speculators (i.e. traders on perps) are paying premium vs spot. If true then speculation is leading, indicating euphoria (at certain levels). Conversely, spot leading perps (i.e. perps at a discount) shows extreme bearish conditions, where speculation is on the short side. Indicating times of despair.

Binance Futures Swap-Spot Basis Label Note: This script will only work with Binance Futures Symbols This script calculates the basis between the Binance Future and Binance Spot market for the coin you are currently viewing and paints a label on the chart which displays the percentage difference between future and spot. If the future is trading below the spot market the text will be red indicating backwardation and if the future is trading above spot, it will be green indicating contango. Please note this script will only work on Binance perps against Binance spot. The script will change based on what perp you are looking at, no inputs are required.

BTC Futures Basis Shows various basis percentages in a table and plots historical basis. Also has an alert function for backwardation events. Useful for tracking bullish/bearish sentiment in BTC futures markets. *Currently displays March and June futures for the following exchanges: Bitmex, Binance, Deribit, Okex, and FTX Also displays CME Continuous Next Contract. All of the symbols are customizable. ----------- Market-wide backwardation usually occurs during a heavy sell-off (such as a liquidation cascade). **For getting alerts of backwardation events, I recommend creating an alert on the 1 minute chart with the condition "Any alert() function call". Alert level is customizable as well. ----------- *NOTE!! : Futures contracts expire (obviously), so the contract symbols will need to be updated periodically. I will try to keep them updated going into the future. **NOTE2!! : The alert() function does not track the CME contract. This is to avoid false triggers.

Cosmic Flow This is a unique take on moving average multiplier indicators. Here, a pair of moving averages is used in combination with a multiplier set of to calculate separate support and resistance levels a new basis point of reference The resulting data can be further used to calculate derived support and resistance levels using the Multiplier Type settings option. The moving averages and multiplier sets are customizable to make it easy to test different values on the fly and discover new patterns, and the Spread settings option is handy for working across timeframes.

Weighted derivatives premium BTC Can be extended with more derivative or spot pairs, see the comments in the code for instructions. Most importantly, the pairs need to be added to the respective arrays in the same order, so that the weights are applied to the correct pairs.