BitMEX Co-Founder Arthur Hayes Returns to Lead AI-Focused Blockchain Venture

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, has ended his retirement to lead Flop Labs, the development team behind Flop Network, a blockchain designed for AI agents. The platform will utilize its native token FLOP as a payment asset for AI agents and establish pricing for computational tasks through floating-point operations (FLOPs) per time unit.

Flop Network's architecture is based on Proof of Useful Inference (PoUI), which distinguishes it from Bitcoin's mining model. Hayes emphasized that autonomous AI agents require both computational capacity and access to historical memory data to operate effectively, and Flop Network aims to prevent any centralized entity from limiting or erasing an agent's operational history.

The FLOP token will implement a fair launch framework with no presale events and no token allocations for venture capital firms. Approximately 20% of the total FLOP token supply will be allocated to testnet contributors throughout a 10-year distribution cycle. A significant FLOP token airdrop is scheduled for Q4 2026, with the Flop Network genesis block launch targeted for Q1 2027.