Arthur Hayes Pitches a Global Price for AI Computing Power Built Around the FLOP Token

Arthur Hayes thinks a crypto network could supply one. In a Substack essay published Monday, Cointelegraph highlighted, he laid out a plan to measure the computing delivered on every AI inference job and use that transaction data to calculate a live market rate for compute, quoted in FLOP tokens. His argument is simple: if Flop turns into the payment rail AI agents rely on, then its exchange rate against compute becomes the benchmark everyone watches. A liquid market like that, he added, would open the door to derivatives built on the same price.

How Big the AI Compute Market Could Get

A July 2026 BCG report asked how soon computing power might be traded like a commodity. The consultancy expects the market to grow from $360 billion in 2025 to about $2.3 trillion by 2030.

Arthur Hayes Token Sales and Market Caution

The essay followed his Saturday statement that he had sold everything in the directional book at Maelstrom, including Ether, Ethena and Uniswap holdings, pointing to shaky macro and geopolitical conditions. Lookonchain tracked roughly $22 million in sales from wallets linked to him: about $15 million in ETH, $2.7 million in ENA and $2.2 million in UNI. Smaller amounts of ETHFI, AERO, PENDLE and ZAMA were also sold, ranging from $1.2 million down to $214,000.