A Degen Skull is a small cartoon skull with a trend arrow drawn across its eyes. Some wear 3D glasses, some a beret, some are painted in six colours. It was minted on Solana. More and more of them now live on X1, and holding one has become the closest thing the X1 community has to a membership card: a badge that follows its owner across both chains and pays out every week.
Behind the skull sits one of the more deliberate cross-chain designs in the X1 ecosystem. The NFT, the token and the launchpad were all built to work on Solana and X1 at the same time, and they came into X1 Labs through a single acquisition a year ago.
The acquisition that brought them in
On September 23, 2025, Jack Levin announced that X1 Labs had acquired XDEX Labs, bringing both XDEX and the Degen token launcher into the X1 ecosystem, with XDEX founder Jason joining X1 Labs as Chief Product Officer. Degen's own licence names XDEX Labs as the owner of the Degen Skull brand, so the collection came in with it.
Levin framed the deal around one idea, reach across both chains:
"XDEX is not just another exchange. Its design will enable cross-chain staking: users will be able to stake XNT on Solana to earn yield on X1. This mechanism will funnel TVL and trading revenue from Solana directly into X1."
He also laid out the launcher's role. "The DGEN token launcher will debut on Solana and later expand to X1," he wrote, calling it "a funnel for new assets and communities to enter the X1 network." A year later that funnel is running on X1 mainnet, and the Skulls are part of it.
What a Skull is
Degen Skulls are Metaplex NFTs minted on Solana in two runs, according to Degen's documentation: an OG mint capped at 839 at 0.5 SOL, and a later "FOMO" mint at 2 SOL, which is still open: Skulls can be minted on Solana through LaunchMyNFT. The docs are direct about what the collection is for:
"The Degen Skull is your on-chain badge of honor — proving you weren't just a creator, you were part of the movement from day one."
The perks are practical rather than decorative:
- No graduation fee. When a token launched on Degen completes its bonding curve, its creator normally pays a graduation fee, currently 20 XNT per launch on X1. Skull holders keep it, for life.
- Airdrop and ecosystem eligibility. Holders qualify for community airdrops and platform perks.
- Early access. New launch templates, featured slots and launch tools reach holders first.
- A visible badge. A Skull badge on a holder's token pages and in trending views is listed as coming soon.
Bridged to X1: 342 Skulls and counting
A Skull does not have to stay on Solana. Degen's staking dashboard has a Bridge NFT button, and the bridged collection appears on X1 as Degen Skulls Bridge (DSKULL). On September 21, 2026, its page on Solaris Prime, X1's NFT marketplace, counted 342 Skulls on X1.
The collection's own traits show how the crossing works. Every one of the 342 carries the trait "Bridge: Solana → X1 (Degen.fyi)", and each records the Solana collection its original is staked in: 301 from one and 41 from the other, matching the two mints. The Solana original stays put and the X1 Skull stands in for it, the same lock-and-mint model the Warp bridge uses for USDC, wSOL and the tokenized stocks.
Skulls on X1 can be bought and sold on Solaris Prime, and new ones can still be minted on Solana and bridged across.
Staking: where the Skull earns
On X1 a Skull works for its owner. Degen's staking dashboard accepts both DGN tokens and Skull NFTs, and pays rewards in XNT on a weekly cycle. The dashboard on September 21, 2026:
- 438 million DGN staked, 43.8% of the token's 1 billion supply
- 236 Skull NFTs staked
- 66 wallets holding 1,433 staking positions
- 62.475 XNT in rewards for the current weekly cycle
Skulls also boost token stakes. Holding more of them lifts a holder's effective stake weight:
| Tier | Skulls held | Vault access | Stake weighting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Degen | 1 | Tier 1 | +10% |
| LFG Degen | 3 | Tier 2 | +20% |
| Giga Degen | 5 | Tier 3 | +30% |
| Degenerate | 10 | Tier 4 | +50% |
That is what turns a picture into a position. A Skull is an entry pass to the launchpad's perks and a multiplier on what its owner already has staked, and both are paid in the chain's native token.
DGN, the token beside the Skull
DGN is Degen's utility token, with a fixed supply of 1 billion. It was fair-launched on Solana with no private sale and no team allocation, and it is spent on shill-board boosts, creator tools and visibility. Its tokenomics set the direction plainly: launch on Solana first for wallets and liquidity, then bridge to X1, with X1 becoming "the native execution environment for boosts, farming, and governance logic."
That second step has happened. DGN is registered on the Warp bridge on both sides, and on X1 it trades on XDEX against XNT at about $0.00032. That puts its market value near $160,000, and because the full supply is already out, its fully diluted value is effectively the same number. DGN now has its own card in the X1 Report market strip, and its price page tracks it live.
Why two chains matter
Everything in this stack was built to live on both networks at once.
- Degen launches a token on X1, on Solana, or on both from one screen. See how the dual-chain launchpad works.
- XDEX serves both. Its API lists four networks, Solana Mainnet, Solana Devnet, X1 Mainnet and X1 Testnet, and Degen routes every swap and pool through it.
- The wallet is the identity. X1 and Solana share an address format, so the same key is the same account on both chains. A Solana wallet in Backpack can be pointed at X1 and used as it is.
That last point is why a Skull works as an identity. A holder is the same address on Solana and on X1, their Skull is visibly the same Skull on both, and the perks follow them from one chain to the other. In an ecosystem where most people arrive from Solana, a badge that already exists there and means something here is a natural first step in.
The next step: XNT on Solana
All of this may matter more once XNT itself reaches Solana. Levin's acquisition post set that out as the plan: "XNT will launch on Solana through XDEX, creating an immediate trading venue and a revenue stream denominated in both SOL and XNT." XNT is already registered on the Warp bridge's Solana side, paused until that launch.
When it happens, the pieces line up. The launchpad already launches on Solana, the DEX already serves both chains, the wallet already uses one address for both, and the Skull already carries its holder's standing across. The XNT that Skull stakers earn each week would then have a market on Solana too, and the path between the two chains would run in both directions. The Skulls were minted on Solana and bridged to X1, and they may turn out to have been an early test of how the rest of the ecosystem crosses over.
Figures were read from Degen's staking dashboard, Solaris Prime and the Warp bridge configuration on September 21, 2026, and will change. Disclosure: X1 Report is run by an X1 node operator who holds XNT. See our editorial standards.
Related: How to launch a token on X1 · Degen: dual-chain token creation · SOL lands on X1 via Warp