arXiv Paper: Basis-Only Funding Rates Cannot Achieve Dividend Fairness — Settlement Design for Crypto-Equity Perpetuals

This 16-page paper, accepted by MARBLE 2026, argues that crypto-exchange stock-like perpetual contracts calculate funding rates from the real-time basis and cannot replicate shareholder dividend cash flows for traders entering or exiting at arbitrary times. The authors derive a fair funding-rate identity, convert point-in-time fairness into an optimal stopping condition, and use measure theory to show that predictable dividends are atomic events. Absolutely continuous funding-rate paths cannot replicate this atom over a holding interval and must be matched with discrete event credits.