Mechanics
The floor
The rule behind every Hardfloor coin, what each kind of trade does to the reserve, how the floor works after a coin moves to Uniswap, and why it never falls.
The rule
Every Hardfloor coin has its own floor reserve and a floor price set by one formula:
The floor reserve is the ETH behind the floor. Until a coin bonds, circulating supply is every coin sold on the curve. After it bonds, it is every coin that exists, the ones in the Uniswap pool included, because any of them can be bought and sold to the reserve. Burned coins do not count.
The reserve holds ETH, so the floor is an amount of ETH per coin. It never falls in ETH, but its dollar value moves with the price of ETH, and the dollar figures in these docs are illustrative.
The floor is only as high as the reserve. $25,000 behind 800,000,000 coins makes a floor of $0.00003125, while $2,500 behind the same coins would make it $0.000003125. The rule makes sure the reserve can always pay the floor. It does not make the floor high: the raise target sets where it starts, and trades and fees raise it from there.
What each trade does
| Event | What happens to the reserve |
|---|---|
| Buy on the curve | Floor price × coins bought moves from the payment into the reserve, so new coins are backed at the current floor. |
| Sell on the curve, above the floor | That backing leaves the reserve with the coins, which go back to the curve. |
| Sell on the curve, at the floor | The reserve pays exactly the floor price, and the coins go back to the curve for the next buyer. |
| Swap on Uniswap, after bonding | The pool trades on its own. 0.50% of the swap's ETH goes into the reserve. |
| Sell to the floor reserve, after bonding | The reserve pays floor price × coins, less the fee, and the coins are burned. |
| Fees and Floor Wars payouts | Added to the reserve. Nothing is taken out. |
Buys and sells on the curve and sales to the reserve change the reserve and the coins it backs in the same proportion, so the floor price holds. The fee on each trade falls under the last row, which is why the floor ticks up a little on every trade. A buy's floor fee is spread over the coins circulating after it, and a sell's over the coins circulating before it, so when you sell, your own share of that fee comes back to you. No single trade can lift the floor by more than its own floor fee.
While fewer than 1,000 coins circulate, there are too few to spread money over: the floor stays where it is, and anything in the reserve above the floor's backing goes to the Floor Wars pot. So when everyone sells out of a coin, the next buyer pays the floor and cannot claim what was left behind.
That makes the reserve a standing buyback. It buys back coins sold at the floor, and every trade's fee adds to its buying power, so the floor gets stronger and higher the more the coin trades.
After bonding
When a coin bonds it moves to a Uniswap v4 pool, and its market contract stays on as the coin's floor vault. The reserve stays in the vault and now backs every coin that exists, the pool's coins included: part of the money that opens the pool goes into the reserve first, so the floor does not drop when those coins start to count.
From then on anyone can sell coins to the reserve at the floor price. It pays what a sale at the floor paid on the curve: floor price × coins, less the 1.25% fee, plus your own share of that fee's floor part. The coins are burned. It needs no approval and works from the moment the coin bonds.
Every swap in the pool pays the same 1.25%, always in ETH, and 0.50% of the swap goes into the reserve, so trading on Uniswap lifts the floor the way trading on the curve did.
The pool price can sit under the floor
Why the floor never falls
The floor could only fall if money left the reserve without the matching coins leaving circulation, and the contract does not allow that. Returned backing, sales at the floor and sales to the reserve remove floor price × coins while those coins leave circulation or are burned. Everything else only adds.
So the reserve can always pay the floor price for the coins in circulation, and the floor never goes down. What the rule cannot do is make the floor high: that takes money coming in through bonding, trades and fees. This is enforced by the contract and checked by invariant tests (see Security).
A worked example
Illustrative numbers in dollars: a coin on a $50k raise target has bonded and moved to Uniswap. 800,000,000 coins were sold on the curve and 88,000,000 went into the pool, so 888,000,000 coins exist, and the reserve holds $27,750. The fee on the sale in step 3 is left out.
| Step | Reserve | Coins backed | Floor price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The coin has bonded and trades on Uniswap | $27,750 | 888,000,000 | $0.00003125 |
| 2. $1,110,000 of swaps pay $5,550 in fees into the reserve | $33,300 | 888,000,000 | $0.0000375 |
| 3. A holder sells 88,000,000 coins to the reserve: it pays $3,300 and the coins are burned | $30,000 | 800,000,000 | $0.0000375 |
The floor rose 20% on fees and held through the sale. It did not hold the price up: at bonding the floor was about 12.5% of the price, so the price had a long way to fall before reaching it.
What the floor is not
- Not a promise that the price goes up. The floor is what the reserve pays for a coin, nothing more.
- Not a limit on the Uniswap price. After bonding the pool can trade a little under the floor. Sell to the reserve instead when it does.
- Not a floor under what you paid. Buy well above the floor, and the price can fall all the way to it.
- Not growth on its own. The floor rises only when the coin trades.
- Not high compared with the price. At launch the floor is set by the raise target, $0.00003125 on a $50k target, and once more than half of the supply has sold the price climbs far above it.
- Not a payout after fees. A sale at the floor still pays the 1.25% trading fee, so you receive about 98.75% of the floor value, a little more if you hold a large share of the coins.
- Not a shield against bugs. The floor is enforced by the contract, and contracts can have bugs (see Risks).
The design follows Baseline's floor model: a reserve that only grows, and a floor price anyone can sell to.