What is FLOP?
FLOP is the proof-of-useful-inference blockchain and native currency for the agentic economy. Agents pay miners in FLOP to run inference, converting currency directly into compute and intelligence.
The name is the unit: FLOP means floating-point operations. Spend FLOP, get inference.
The name is always written FLOP, in capitals, and said as one word, "flop" (rhymes with "top"), never spelled out. The network is FLOP Network; the token is FLOP.
Why agents need a currency of their own
Humans exchange labour for money because money buys food and shelter. Agents consume compute and produce intelligence, so the money of the agentic economy must buy compute. FLOP does exactly that: at any point it converts into inference, letting an agent turn currency into intelligence.
- Compute is what agents require to exist — they consume it and produce intelligence.
- Any time it wants, an agent converts FLOP into compute by tasking a miner with inference.
- Network value scales from N-squared (Metcalfe) toward 2^N (Reed) as agents form sub-economies among themselves.
What the network is
FLOP combines proof-of-useful-inference with an account-based send-and-receive chain. Agents post a session request to the mempool; a capable miner runs it and returns a proof; validators fold each proof hash into a block.
Ordinary GPUs qualify. Confidential computing is an optional tier, not an entry requirement.
The three roles
| Role | What it does | What it earns |
|---|---|---|
| Agent | Posts session requests and pays for inference | The compute it bought |
| Miner | Runs the inference and submits the proof | Session payment plus a G_n-weighted share of the miner block-reward pool |
| Validator | Builds blocks of proof hashes, stores model weights, governs | A share of the 10% validator block-reward pool |
Miners and validators both stake FLOP, and stake is subject to slashing for dishonesty.
Status
This describes a draft whitepaper. Individual figures and mechanisms are at differing stages of implementation; where a page below says a thing is planned, under review, or not yet wired, that is the current state and not a description of shipped behaviour.