AI compute gets a price tag as Hayes pitches FLOP’s derivatives market 🤖

Arthur Hayes has outlined Flop Labs’ plan to turn AI computing power into a tradable commodity, arguing that a spot market priced in FLOP could establish the foundation for derivatives tied to AI inference costs.

In a Monday Substack essay, the BitMEX co-founder and Flop Labs CEO proposed measuring the computing power delivered for each AI inference task and using transaction data to derive a spot price for compute denominated in Flop (FLOP) tokens. He cited the lack of a universal benchmark price for AI computing power and said, “If Flop becomes the payments network for AI agents, then it follows that the $FLOP/compute exchange rate will be the global benchmark for spot compute,” adding that a liquid spot compute market would enable derivatives based on that price.

Flop Labs is developing a network that allows AI agents to pay for computing and decentralized memory services. Hayes said in August that Flop was planning a “massive airdrop” in the fourth quarter of 2026, after announcing that he would serve as the company’s CEO. Analysts at BCG in a July 2026 report projected that the AI compute market would grow from $360 billion in 2025 to roughly $2.3 trillion by 2030.

Hayes’ vision came two days after he said he “dumped it all” and took profits from Ether (ETH), Ethena (ENA) and Uniswap (UNI) token holdings in Maelstrom’s directional trading book, citing “dicey” macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions. Lookonchain later flagged about $22 million worth of tokens sold by Hayes-linked wallets, including $15 million in ETH, $2.7 million in ENA, $2.2 million in UNI, $1.2 million in Ether.fi (ETHFI), $398,000 in Aerodrome Finance (AERO), $244,000 in Pendle (PENDLE) and $214,000 in Zama (ZAMA) tokens.