Arthur Hayes takes CEO role at Flop Labs ahead of Q4 airdrop

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said he would lead Flop Labs and updated his X profile to identify himself as the company’s CEO. Flop Labs is developing a proposed network through which AI agents would pay for computing and other services.“I’m coming out of retirement to lead @flop_labs,” Hayes said in a Tuesday X post.Cointelegraph has approached Hayes for comment and asked whether this position would affect his existing role as chief investment officer of Maelstrom Fund.Hayes said Flop plans a “massive airdrop” in the fourth quarter of 2026, before the network’s genesis block launches in early 2027. Further details will be announced later.Flop brands itself as a “proof-of-useful-inference protocol founded by Arthur Hayes,” in which AI agents spend the protocol’s native Flop (FLOP) token for inference and decentralized memory services.Hayes co-founded cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX in 2014 but stepped down from his role as CEO in October 2020. In July 2026, BitMEX announced that it would shut down its exchange on Sept. 23. Magazine: Why Bitcoin has recently reacted more to liquidity conditions than to rate cutsCointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This ...