Arthur Hayes printed a brand new essay on October 27 outlining futures and perpetual swaps tied to Flop Community’s proposed compute market, the place AI brokers would pay for computing energy utilizing FLOP.
The plan goals to ascertain a reference value for compute that merchants might use to construct monetary contracts across the sources AI techniques devour.
Hayes Particulars How FRCR Futures Would Work
In a put up on X, Hayes known as his essay “The Trifecta” and described it as a blueprint for entrepreneurs looking for to construct derivatives for the AI agent economic system. His central thought is {that a} liquid spot marketplace for computing energy might present the pricing benchmark wanted for futures and perpetual swaps.
The proposed Flop Reference Compute Fee (FRCR) can be calculated hourly utilizing a volume-weighted FLOP value per GigaFLOP of computing capability. Quarterly futures would choose the final Friday of March, June, September, and December, with contracts utilizing US {dollars} for margin and earnings.
Hayes defined that the dollar-based construction would require a quanto by-product, a contract whose payout makes use of a distinct foreign money from its underlying asset. As a result of the compute market can be priced in FLOP whereas merchants might choose dollar-denominated returns, pricing the contract would require an adjustment for the connection between the FRCR and the FLOP-to-dollar alternate charge.
The proposed perpetual swap would use an eight-hour time-weighted common of the distinction between its buying and selling value and the FRCR to calculate funding funds. As with crypto perpetuals, merchants on the costly aspect of the contract would pay these on the cheaper aspect, relying on the premium.
Market makers might recreate futures publicity by shopping for or supplying Flop Compute Models (FCUs), which symbolize reserved inference capability for a specified AI mannequin and supply time. Hayes’s design additionally requires suppliers to put up FLOP bonds, which they threat dropping in the event that they fail to ship the promised computing work.
Flop’s Spot Market Is the Basis
The derivatives proposal will depend on Flop Community first establishing a functioning spot market. Hayes argues that present indexes monitoring chip rental costs and particular person AI token costs present incomplete data as a result of each are derivatives of the underlying price of computation.
Beneath his design, community blocks would report inference duties, the computing work accomplished, and the charges paid to miners. These receipts would assist calculate the alternate charge between FLOP and computing capability, giving patrons and suppliers a typical reference.
Hayes launched Flop Labs in August 2026, describing its proposed native token FLOP as “meals in your AI agent.” In an August 27 clarification, the venture argued that autonomous brokers want cash immediately exchangeable for computing sources slightly than cost techniques designed primarily round individuals and companies.
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