This question come my mind because nobody taught me crypto trading, I know all by myself. There was a day that I opened a short position with a shit coin pair that has increased in price significantly. This is very dangerous because the coin can still double or do 2x more within minutes or in few hours just like shit coins, but I thought was so lucky as the coin dropped significantly. I gained slightly more than $200, but when I went to balance, my balance remained almost the same. I thought the exchange has cheated me, but I do not wait or have any second thought than to contact the exchange customer care, they told me about funding rate. I went to see the funding rate on the trading history, it was slightly more than $200, so I gained almost nothing on a position that I thought I gained slightly more than $200
i didn't find any question in your post but yep this is what happens when something is being shorted to the ground by a crowd.
shorters or longers pay or get paid depending on if they're the majority (pay) or the minority (get paid).
and if shorters significantly overweight longers, the funding rate can be nasty, especially since it's paid every hour or every few hours, depending on platform rules.
in extreme cases you may end up getting liquidated even if the price hasn't moved at all.