$PIPPIN touched a low of 0.273 after continuous decline, then rebounded and oscillated around 0.283. Many people in forums speculate that whales will unwind their positions at this price level, but few have done the math: if the whale has been holding positions for over a month, the funding costs already represent considerable expenses. Just covering these costs would be a pipe dream — unless the coin price goes to zero.

What's even more painful is the funding mechanism itself. When going long against whales, you must fight constant selling pressure while being eroded by hourly negative funding rates; going short faces the risk of liquidation trap, and once it rebounds, you're paying double the funding fees. Sideways trading is even worse, where negative funding periods are essentially burning money. This is the brutal reality of perpetual futures trading — regardless of whether you predict the direction correctly, funding fees relentlessly wear away your profit margins. For retail traders with smaller positions, just figuring out how to deal with funding fees is already exhausting.