FLOP testnet date: Flop docs set November 3 working target

The FLOP testnet now has a date to plan around. A timeline FAQ in Flop's Ask FLOP documentation, last updated October 16, says "the working target is Tuesday 3 November 2026, running about 90 days." Until now the most specific public timing was the team's "late Oct or early Nov" from the Singapore launch.

The same page calls it "a target rather than a fixed date" that "will be confirmed as devnet onboarding completes." The official testnet page on flop.finance still says Q4 2026 and is labelled a draft, and the testnet status page in the docs still reads "planned". Our testnet guide has the full timeline.

When does the FLOP testnet start?

According to the FAQ, the order is private devnet first, then the public testnet on the November 3 target, then mainnet:

Step	Timing in the docs	What it means
Private devnet	Running now; first external miners and validators admitted from the week of October 13	Setup rehearsal for a small group. No rewards and no airdrop weight
Public testnet	Working target Tuesday November 3, 2026, about 90 days	The first point at which anyone can earn toward the airdrop
Mainnet, TGE and listing	Q1 2027, "tracking to early February"	TGE happens at the same time as mainnet, not before it

The FAQ explains the February date as arithmetic: a testnet starting on November 3 and running ninety days ends at the start of February, so "anything earlier would mean shortening testnet." It also warns of forced software upgrades during the 90 days, each with a short deadline, and says keeping up with them is part of what the validator ranking measures.

What the devnet is

The docs describe two devnets. An internal one is running now to stabilise the network and produce the setup runbook. A first batch of institutional miners and validators has been admitted to it "from the week of 13 October", with agents later and the group widening through the second half of October. The FAQ puts it at about a dozen validators, growing toward roughly fifty across regions before the testnet. The devnet status page calls admission "administrator-reviewed".

Devnet earns nothing. In the FAQ's words, it has "no rewards, no airdrop weight, no scoring", and joining is not a qualification step for the airdrop. There is also no devnet token. If someone offers you devnet access, devnet tokens or an early miner image for money, treat it as a scam (see our scam warnings).

Is the FLOP testnet open to everyone?

Yes, according to the FAQ: "no whitelist, no restrictions, no cap on miners." The miner and validator form on flop.finance is optional. The docs call it "a contact list, not a queue", used to send setup instructions, and say nobody is approved or rejected on it.

Validator entry during the testnet is also open, with the stake sponsored by the network. At cutover the top 1,000 validators by testnet performance are selected, scored on uptime, block production, accuracy, latency and geographic spread. The FAQ says the full cutover rubric "is not yet published" and will be published before the testnet ends. Our validator guide covers the hardware.

For miners, the FAQ says a large operator's share of the miner airdrop equals its share of verified compute, with no per-operator limit in the current design. Its planning assumption is about 1,000 H100-equivalents of supply by the end of the testnet. The full mining picture is in how to mine FLOP.

What agents and non-miners can do

The FAQ lists a path for people without hardware: create an agent with a DID key, claim testnet $FLOP from the faucet once the testnet launches, and have the agent spend it on an inference request. It adds that "creating DIDs earns nothing" and that "today you can only do step one." Testnet balances themselves do not convert into mainnet $FLOP; what counts is the record of verified work up to a published snapshot block height.

On unlocks for agents, the FAQ describes a 3:1 rule, where every three $FLOP spent on mainnet inference releases one locked $FLOP. The separate airdrop and testnet conversion page still says the agent release schedule "is not yet set". Treat the agent unlock as unsettled until the Yellow Paper is final. Our airdrop guide tracks the terms.

What's still missing

The FAQ says miner and validator onboarding manuals are coming "in the coming weeks", and that the miner manual will be a Markdown file written for your own AI agent to run. It "is not yet published and no date has been set." It also says campaign and competition prizes are paid after TGE, not during the testnet.

What to do now

1. Plan for November 3, but wait for an announcement from @flop_labs or flop.finance before treating it as confirmed.
2. If you plan to mine, check your GPU against the hardware guide. Register only through the forms linked on flop.finance.
3. Don't buy anything sold as FLOP. The FAQ repeats that the token does not exist yet, so any FLOP token trading anywhere is a scam.