KBW keynote: Arthur Hayes calls FLOP 'food for your agent', targets late-October testnet

Arthur Hayes used his Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) keynote to put a timeline on Flop Network in public. Flop Labs summed up the talk in one line: "$FLOP is food for your agent."

The timeline

Flop Labs' post said: "Testnet late October, genesis block in Q1 2027. It's now or never."

That's more specific than the official testnet page, which says the testnet opens in Q4 2026 "when its readiness criteria are met" and runs for about 90 days, with mainnet in Q1 2027. The two fit together: late October is inside Q4. But the official schedule is provisional and can be extended. See our testnet guide.

The pitch

According to the post, Hayes argued that agents "live on compute", and that $FLOP is "a currency mined by doing inference, so every token traces back to compute that was actually delivered." This is the proof-of-useful-inference idea explained in What is FLOP?.

The press picked up the theme. The Block reported Hayes saying at KBW that no digital currency, including bitcoin and stablecoins, can currently serve as a native currency for AI agents. Cointelegraph quoted him: "Flop is food for your AI agent to put this in terms that we can understand as humans." Bitcoin.com News hosted Hayes on its Live News Desk at KBW, where he talked about Ethereum, Hyperliquid and Flop.

What to do with this

If you plan to take part, the testnet is the only route to the genesis airdrop. Check your hardware against the mining or validator specs. Register interest only through the official site.