What is low ball bidding?
Low-ball bidding is a strategy used by NFT investors to get into hyped projects at a discount to the current floor price. Thanks to the “collection offer” feature on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, users can send out thousands of offers at once in hopes that just one person will accept one of them. The biggest perk of this strategy is that you can set your own price, and can often score some great deals on prominent collections. In many cases, you’re getting in below the floor, which technically means that you are instantly in profit once the bid is accepted (if you’re able to then sell it for higher).
How can low ball bidding make you money?
A good technique for making profitable flips without necessarily worrying about a sinking floor price is to make low ball collection offers on “blue-chip” (or strong community) projects. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to execute a low-ball-bid & flip:
- Find a solid project worth investing in. The most difficult step in this process is getting started, which primarily involves locating good projects. To do this, ask around in various communities (or do some quick Google and Twitter searching) to figure out what collections seem to be holding their floor even in times of bearishness. Ideally, these projects have been around for a while, and will have held a floor price well above the mint price. That is the best indication of community strength, which is essential for safely investing. Alternatively, turn to OpenSea and pick out trending projects or check the top traded all time. In other words, find the “blue chip” collections that are within your price range.
- Determine a good entry price for the project. The next step is coming up with a bid that can score you the NFT while also setting up a potential flip. It is important to consider the trading fees, such as gas, OpenSea fees, and creator royalties. If you bid .5 ETH with the intention of flipping for .55 ETH, you’re in for a rude awakening when the royalties wipe out almost all of your gains. Take a look at the floor price, the current standing highest collection offer, and the associated trading fees before deciding if it’s worth it. When you find a good candidate, load up your wETH and move on to the next step.
- Place the offer and wait. In order for your offers to be successful, you’ll want to bid slightly above the current highest collection offer. It is unlikely that someone will accept your .1 wETH offer when there’s already a .15 wETH offer on their NFT. Instead, add .01 ETH to the highest collection offer and hope that nobody bids above you. Also make sure to set the offer to expire within a short window so that you don’t have to cancel it to make a new offer. After the offer is placed, sit and wait to see if someone accepts it.
- Make a quick flip, or hold out for bigger gains. Someone accepted your low ball bid – congrats! Now what? If you set yourself up for a nice flip, list the NFT around the floor and wait for someone to scoop it up. If the floor is on an uptrend, you could even list slightly above the floor (within reason) to add on to the potential profits. If the NFT fails to sell and the floor drops, you can more easily cut your losses (hopefully small ones thanks to your lowball offer) and move on to the next one. Alternatively, if you’ve bought into something that you believe in for the long term, don’t be afraid to hold on for a while to see how it grows. You might just make some bigger gains with a little patience.
It’s not a perfect strategy, but low-ball bidding can be an effective method for reducing risk and increasing potential profits. Instead of buying the floor and then hoping for a 10% increase before selling, you can submit some cheap bids and get ahold of the most coveted NFTs at a nice discount. From there, the profits will come more easily, and the losses will sting a bit less. Why not give it a try?
