NFT communities have their own dense vocabulary, and it can be genuinely disorienting for newcomers trying to follow a conversation about a drop or a collection. Here’s a practical glossary of the terms that come up most often, explained in plain language.
Key Takeaways
- ‘Minting’ is the process of creating a new NFT on the blockchain, typically the initial purchase directly from the project.
- ‘Floor price’ is the lowest current asking price for any NFT in a given collection — a common (if imperfect) way to gauge a collection’s overall valuation.
- ‘Rarity’ refers to how uncommon a specific NFT’s traits are relative to the rest of its collection, which often correlates with (but doesn’t guarantee) higher resale value.
- ‘Gas war’ describes the spike in transaction fees that happens when many people try to mint the same popular NFT collection simultaneously.
- ‘Wash trading’ refers to artificially inflating an NFT’s trading volume or price by trading it between wallets the same person or entity controls — a known manipulation risk in NFT markets worth watching for.
Common NFT Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Minting | Creating/purchasing a new NFT directly from its origin on the blockchain |
| Floor price | The lowest current listed price in a collection |
| Rarity | How uncommon an NFT’s specific traits are within its collection |
| Gas war | A spike in fees from many people minting simultaneously |
| Wash trading | Artificially inflating volume/price via self-trading |
Our Take
Learning NFT vocabulary is less about memorizing definitions and more about recognizing which terms are describing genuine market mechanics (floor price, rarity, minting) versus which are describing risks and red flags worth actively watching for (wash trading, rug pulls). Conflating the two — treating every piece of NFT jargon as neutral, technical description — is how newcomers miss warning signs that are hiding in plain sight within a project’s own trading data.
Floor price specifically deserves a bit of skepticism as a headline metric: it reflects the cheapest listed item, not the collection’s actual liquidity or the price most items would realistically sell for. A collection can have an impressive-looking floor price while very few trades are actually happening near it — a distinction worth checking (via trading volume) before treating floor price as a reliable valuation signal.
FAQs
What does ‘floor price’ actually tell you about a collection?
It tells you the cheapest currently listed item, which is a useful reference point but not a full picture of liquidity — checking recent trading volume alongside floor price gives a more accurate sense of a collection’s real market activity.
What is wash trading, and why does it matter?
Wash trading is when someone trades an asset between wallets they control to artificially inflate its apparent volume or price — it’s a manipulation tactic worth watching for when evaluating an NFT collection’s real trading activity.
📎 Source: Coinbase Learn — The ultimate NFT glossary: all the terms any collectors should know
