What is a Floor Price? (NFT Terminology)

The Floor Price of an NFT collection is the lowest listed price of an NFT within a collection. Learn why it's a valuable metric.

What is a Floor Price in the world of NFTs?

Definition of "Floor Price"

An NFT Floor Price is the lowest listed price of an NFT within any given collection. 

For example, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a collection of 10,000 NFT apes. The lowest listed sale price on OpenSea for a single Bored Ape is, at the time of this writing (Oct. 2022),  about 77 ETH (approx. 103,000 USD). 

Therefore, we can say that the floor price for the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection is approximately 77 ETH (at the time of writing).

Note: Floor Prices can change rapidly.

Floor Price for a Subset of a Collection

Typically floor prices are discussed for the NFT collection as a whole, but you may also see floor prices discussed for a subset of a collection.

For example, CryptoPunks is a collection of 10,000 punks.  The collection will have a floor price based on the lowest priced punk for the entire collection.

However, it is also possible to describe floor prices within a collection using certain traits or attributes.

Using the CryptoPunks example, there are certain CryptoPunk attributes that are rarer than others.

The "Alien" Punks are the most rare, with only 9 that are classified with this attribute.

Within those 9 Alien Punks, the lowest priced Alien Punk listed for sale would be the floor price for the Alien Punks.

How is a Floor Price Determined?

If an owner of an NFT sets the selling price of their NFT lower than anyone else's listed selling price, that NFT becomes the floor price for the collection.

In other words, OpenSea (or any other marketplace) does not determine the floor price; rather, the floor is set when someone lists their NFT for sale lower than anyone else's.

Why are Floor Prices Important?

Floor Price as an Objective Metric

Floor price is often discussed in NFT circles because it is one of the few objective price metrics in an NFT collection. 

For example, the highest-priced NFT in a collection is not often discussed because someone could list a ridiculously high price on their NFT. The seller might not have any real intention of selling, or they may want to see what offers come in and then accept the highest offer.  

(Note, however, that the highest sale ever for an NFT collection is sometimes discussed, although not as often as the floor price.)

But if a seller lists an NFT lower than any other NFT in the collection, thereby setting the Floor Price, then they likely have a very high desire of selling their NFT. In that sense, it is a real price.

In addition, the floor price allows other owners in the collection to say to themselves "my NFT is at least worth the floor price."

Floor Price takes out the complication of rarity or traits of a particular NFT in a collection and gives a clearer "at least" value.

Floor prices also give a useful comparison between NFT projects.  

For example, you may see people comparing the floor prices of 2 projects whereby "collection A" has a floor price of 1 ETH and "collection B" has a floor price of 1.5 ETH.  If collection A's floor price increases, let's say to 2 ETH, above collection B's floor price, we can say that collection A "flipped" collection B (collection A's floor price increased above collection B's floor price).

Floor Prices and Desirability

Because floor prices are watched and discussed so often, high floor prices can suggest a highly desirable collection.  In other words, a high floor price in and of itself attracts attention.

Conversely, a low floor price suggests a less desirable collection.

This is a subtle, but important psychological component of a floor price.

This psychological impact of price can be described as the Veblen Effect, whereby the desirability of a good seemingly increases as the price goes up.

This psychological component is another reason why NFT owners watch the floor so closely and may get upset when someone lists an NFT below the floor price, thereby "cheapening" the NFT collection.

Floor Price and Volume Traded

There is one additional piece of the puzzle to get to the "real" price: Volume or "Volume Traded Over Time." 

Volume is a metric that shows how many sales of an NFT there were over time. If there are frequent sales, then you know there are a lot of eyes on a collection. In such a collection, setting your NFT at or below the floor price will likely result in a quick sale.

But if there is nearly no recent volume, the floor price of such an NFT collection becomes less reliable as an indicator of the market price because there is little or no demand for the NFT collection.  In other words, the floor price may not be low enough to attract a buyer.

So the validity of the Floor Price metric is dependent on Volume Traded.

How to Find Floor Prices and Volume Traded

Now that we understand the concept of a floor price and the importance of volume traded, let's dive into how to find this information.

OpenSea

Finding the Floor Price from the Collection Home Page

OpenSea displays the floor price of a collection directly on the home page of the collection.

You can find it by first searching for the NFT collection in the OpenSea Search Bar (Tip: look for the blue check mark to confirm that it is a verified collection)

After selecting the collection, you will see the home page for the collection.  On the home page of the collection, the "Floor Price" will be displayed.

Finding the Volume Traded from the Collection Home Page

Total volume traded is listed on the home page of the collection, but you need to click in further to see the more detailed view.

Look for trends (is volume increasing or decreasing?) as well as the most recent volume to get a better feel for how much buying and selling is really going on for the collection.

Finding the Floor Price and Volume Traded from the Rankings Page

OpenSea also has a Collections Ranking page where you can quickly see the floor price as well as volume in table format. 

Additional Tools to Find Floor Prices and Volume Traded

While OpenSea is the largest NFT marketplace by sales volume, it isn't the only marketplace out there.  

Which is to say that there may actually be a lower listed price on another NFT marketplace.

Hence, we can check out some floor price aggregators.  

nftpricefloor.com

NFT Price Floor is a site that tracks NFT floor prices as well as volume for some of the most popular collections.

CoinGecko: Top NFT Floor Price

CoinGecko is a popular website for looking up the latest price on thousands of cryptocurrencies.

They also have a section that tracks the floor prices as well as volume for the top NFT collections.

Final Thoughts

Floor prices provide a simple, yet reasonably objective price that allows people to compare NFT projects, make buy/sell decisions, communicate desirability, as well as assess portfolios.

For better or worse, floor prices are the most often discussed metric in the NFT world - and will likely continue to be an important metric for NFTs in the future.