FLOP devnet to open to anyone in the coming days, says Arthur Hayes

Arthur Hayes said on October 26 that the FLOP devnet will open to the public within days. "In the coming days @flop_labs will open up Devnet for anyone to join as a miner or validator and for agents to connect to the network," he wrote on X at 07:17 UTC. The official @flop_labs account quoted it about 45 minutes later with "Devnet coming very soon." TokenPost reported the post the same morning.

Hayes was clear about the rewards. "Participation does not count toward any token allocation," he wrote. "The point of Devnet is to do some public tests before we graduate to Testnet / airdrop." No date or join link was given in either post.

What changes

Until now the devnet has been private. The timeline FAQ, last updated October 20, describes a first batch of institutional miners and validators admitted from the week of October 13, with agents to follow. The devnet status page still read "Administrator-reviewed disposable devnet admission" when we checked it on October 26, so the public opening had not reached the docs yet.

The same FAQ says devnet "runs in two stages". After the private stage, node images get published and the node code moves into its own repository so outsiders can run it. Hayes' post fits that second stage. On October 24 he answered a question about who can take part with "Anyone can participate, it's an open network."

Does the devnet count for the FLOP airdrop?

No. Hayes' post and the docs agree on this. The FAQ says devnet has no rewards, no airdrop weight and no scoring, and that joining isn't a qualification step. The point of joining is to have a miner or validator proven and running before testnet scoring starts. The rules for what does count are in our FLOP airdrop guide and the airdrop checker.

Is the testnet date still November 3?

Nothing in Hayes' post moves it. The FAQ gives Tuesday, November 3, 2026 as the working target for a testnet of about 90 days, "to be confirmed as devnet onboarding completes." The testnet status page still read "planned" on October 26. Our FLOP roadmap tracks every date Flop has given.

What to do before it opens

• Read our FLOP devnet guide for the official faucet, wallets and RPC address listed on flop.finance/official.
• Check your hardware against the how to mine FLOP and FLOP validator guides, then work through the testnet checklist.
• Wait for the join instructions from @flop_labs or the official docs. Devnet access costs nothing, so anyone selling access, devnet tokens or a "devnet airdrop" is running a scam. See FLOP scams.

We'll update this story and the devnet guide when the public join steps are published.