FLOP testnet date to be announced next week, Hayes says

Arthur Hayes has narrowed the timing again. At 11:01 UTC on November 6, 2026, he posted that Flop Labs' "Devnet" is "cooking", told people who want to "maximise your earnings during Testnet" to "get setup now before the airdrop period begins", and closed with: "We will announce the Testnet date next week."

Let's go @flop_labs Devnet. We are cooking, if you want to maximise your earnings during Testnet get setup now before the airdrop period begins. We will announce the Testnet date next week.

— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) November 6, 2026

Two days earlier, on November 4, Hayes had said the team would "make a determination on testnet launch date early next week" while "changing parts of the protocol" (our earlier story). The November 6 line goes further: the public message is now an announcement next week, not only an internal decision window. He still did not publish a calendar date.

Has Flop opened the testnet?

No. When we checked on November 7, the Ask FLOP testnet status page still read "Status: planned", and the draft flop.finance/testnet page still listed "Opens Q4 2026", about 90 days, and mainnet in Q1 2027. Flop's timeline FAQ, last updated October 30, still names Tuesday 3 November 2026 as a "working target" that has already passed, and still calls that target "rather than a fixed date".

The airdrop page remains a draft. It still says the 4.4bn $FLOP genesis pool is earned on the testnet, not on the current public devnet. Devnet activity still earns no airdrop weight.

What should operators do this week?

Hayes' post points people at the live devnet and at getting set up before the airdrop period. Devnet still does not count for the airdrop. What it can do is prove your host, tooling and agent wiring before Flop publishes the testnet date.

Our joining checklist and devnet guides cover the current steps. The explorer's validator package is downloadable again as version 0.3.0-devnet.1 (our package story); onboarding is still administrator-assisted. For live status, use the testnet tracker.

There is no FLOP token yet. Anyone selling FLOP or promising paid testnet seats is running a scam. FLOP never asks for a seed phrase. See FLOP scams.