X1 co-founder Jack Levin held his first official live Q&A stream in July 2026, taking questions from the XEN and X1 communities on everything from holder anxiety over XEN — the Ethereum-native token, which has no official X1 ticker of its own — and the mechanics of XEN Prime, to the looming October 6 validator token unlock, XNM staking, and why he thinks X1 doesn't need to pick a single narrative to win. The session ran from California rather than his usual Hawaii setup, and marked a permanent move from Restream to Twitch, with recordings reposted to YouTube afterward for discoverability. Levin said future streams will continue on Twitch going forward.
Between the crypto talk, Levin joked about his own "anti-aging" routine — coffee, a 60-gram protein shake, and morning cardio — "so that I live long enough to see this project becoming a hundred billion dollar blockchain." Below is a cleaned-up, corrected transcript of the questions and answers, organized by topic.
XEN Holders, Ethereum Dominance, and the Path to XEN Prime
Q: What is actually going to happen to XEN holders? — asked by DogA Gaming
Levin was blunt: "I don't know what's going to happen to the holders. If they don't sell, they'll still be holders. If they sell, hopefully at a profit." He then pulled up Etherscan live on stream to check XEN's Ethereum footprint — over the prior 24 hours, XEN had ranked #1 in Ethereum gas usage, ahead of every stablecoin. He called it "a legitimate thing to be proud of," noting that while unique Ethereum addresses keep climbing, an increasing share of transactions are either XEN mints or scams, with Coinbase dominating whatever non-scam activity remains.
Q: Are immutable contracts safe? What's your take on the DBXen hack — could XEN be affected? — asked by O2 Abdul
Levin doesn't consider immutable contracts inherently safe. Immutability stops a creator from rugging or altering a contract, but it also means that if a bug exists, nobody can fix it. That is exactly what killed DBXen: a bug in an immutable contract that the team had no way to patch, rendering the project "pretty much dead." XEN, he argued, is a different animal — "such a simple contract... unless an EVM breaks, I don't think there is much to exploit." It doesn't store anything, and the only theoretical risk would be an infinite-mint vulnerability, which hasn't materialized in four years. Channeling Richard Heart, Levin quipped: "Four years of flawless operation."
Q: What is the ratio of XEN burn for XEN Prime? Describe XEN Prime. — from chat
XEN Prime is a hardcapped token — 10 million maximum supply — on X1 that XEN holders can optionally convert into. It is not an obligation, Levin stressed, just an option. The rationale traces back to a strategic pivot: the original plan was an Ethereum-fork "Phantom" blockchain, but as the EVM landscape fragmented and competing with Coinbase's well-funded L2 push looked unappealing, the team decided Solana's ecosystem was "far more vibrant and supportive" and made what Levin called the "hard but yet exciting decision" to pivot to an SVM fork — X1.
The conversion runs in seasons: Season 1 releases 5 million tokens (half the supply), and each subsequent season halves the allocation again, so roughly 75% of total supply is distributed within 2-3 seasons. The conversion rate drops over time, which Levin says keeps it fair — early participants get better rates than someone trying to mint cheaply and convert late. It's described as "burn economics," but it's really an irreversible one-way conversion: once you convert, you can't go back, and market pricing depends entirely on XEN's own price. The core use case is taking an enormous, inflationary supply and compressing it into a hardcapped 10 million XEN Prime that can then be traded for XNT, staked, used in liquidity pools, or integrated elsewhere.
XNM Staking, the October 6 XNT Unlock, and the Farmer Problem
Q: Update on XNM staking for XNT yield? The tech is done — why the hold-up? — asked by XNM Kitten
Levin corrected the premise outright: the tech is not done. "We don't have the staking done for XNM." The delay, he said, is purely about prioritization — the team is simultaneously juggling XDEX, trading bots, validator staking policy changes, and bridge security. "99% of the effort is to make sure that the chain does not fall over." XNM staking will come, he said, but not at the expense of core infrastructure.
Q: When will validators receive testnet XNT? — asked by Lexi Mark NFT
October 6, 2026. Validators have already received a small percentage, with the remaining roughly 90% of the testnet allocation unlocking on that date. Levin characterized it as "not that much" in the grand scheme — on the order of 5-6 million XNT against total supply.
Q: What's the plan for the October 6 unlock and sell pressure? What about the Terminal program? — from formal community questions
XDEX Terminal is designed to release foundation liquidity at a floor of $1 per XNT — you can buy at $1 or above, and sell back for no less than $1, while price can still climb to $2, $3 or beyond. The purpose is solving XDEX's slippage problem: the current XNT/USDC.X pool is thin enough that a $10,000-$100,000 buy can push price to $7-$8, scaring off larger investors. Terminal is meant to give whales a way in without absurd slippage.
What Terminal cannot do, Levin was explicit, is blunt the October 6 unlock itself. If validators or investors want to sell their newly-unlocked tokens, they have every right to, and "it can't just manifest the million dollars for you to sell into." His stance: the project's longevity matters more than artificially defending a price point. If sell pressure knocks XNT down to 10 cents, he expects organic buyers to eventually step back in — he's underwriting a 5-10 year view toward $20-$50 XNT, not defending today's dollar.
Q: Are farmers still getting cheap XNT? — from formal community questions
Yes, Levin acknowledged — some operators run 20-30 VPS validators purely to farm rewards. But daily selling has slowed because Project Capybara's rising minimum self-stake requirement (now 3,000 XNT, potentially heading to 5,000 — see our breakdown of the staking ratchet effect) creates a credible threat: sell everything and get priced out of the delegation program entirely. Levin drew a sharp line between genuine validators — decent hardware, long-term holders, buyers, contributors — and farmers he called "opportunistic... parasite-like." He noted that foundation delegation programs like X1's are rare (Solana had one for years and is reportedly considering closing it), and that running a validator on Ethereum requires roughly $50,000 in staked ETH versus about $300/month plus the self-stake requirement on X1 — a far more accessible bar, deliberately so.
Q: Is X1 Labs planning to add liquidity to the XNT/USDC.X pool? How much? — from formal community questions
Hard to answer, Levin said, since the team hasn't raised money since its last round. XDEX Terminal is the intended fix for liquidity depth; if it's deployed on Solana as well (likely, for marketing reach), XNT will first need to be wrapped and made bridge-transferable.
Q: Terminal listings, bootstrap bonus, timeline? — from formal community questions
- A bootstrap bonus website is targeted roughly 30 days before October 6 — around September 6.
- DEX Screener, CoinMarketCap, and CoinGecko listings are being handled by Mr. XEN Tzu, with an estimated 2-3 weeks to completion.
- Terminal itself is already built and tested; the open decision is whether it launches on Solana or directly on X1.
Q: Will there be another USD stablecoin on X1, or only USDC.X? — from formal community questions
USDC.X is simply wrapped USDC — the compliant way to bring it onto X1. Wrapping USDT is technically possible but, in Levin's words, "what's the point" when one stablecoin already does the job. If Tether comes to X1 natively down the line, both native USDT and native USDC would coexist, and there's reportedly a working relationship with PayPal around potential PYUSD integration. For now, the focus stays on USDC given its dominance on Solana. Phantom/Visa integration and instant, no-fee stablecoin transfers are on the roadmap, but Levin was candid that "right now I think what we need is better TVL, better marketing, and we need to exist on all of the DEX screeners" before chasing those bigger integrations.
Q: What about instant transactions without waiting for a block — how does X1 compare to Ripple here? — from formal community questions
Levin waved this off as largely a non-issue: "Our blocks are like one-third of a second." The team has already demonstrated transaction preconfirmations for stablecoin transfers within 5 seconds in an investor demo, and cross-border payment use cases built on that code are on the roadmap.
Why X1, Not Just AI, Gaming, or Perps
Q: What is X1's core narrative — AI, gaming, or perpetuals? — from formal community questions
Levin refused to pick one. AI is hot, gaming is cool, perpetuals are trending on the back of Hyperliquid's success — but none of those define X1 on their own. He pointed to Near Protocol as a cautionary tale: "really interesting things with AI but nobody uses them," with its price pump driven by influencer attention rather than organic usage. For Levin, the actual narrative is opportunity: Solana is the only other major SVM chain, and at $80 it might reach $150-$200, while XNT near $1 could reach $20 with far less sell pressure simply because tokens haven't been widely distributed yet. For builders, he framed X1 as a lower-risk way to get SVM exposure while the token is cheap and the community is fresh: "It's not what you are doing, it's more like what does the world want to do with blockchain technology moving forward." The founding team's job, as he sees it, is to ship primitives — a working blockchain, wallet, DEX, and secure bridge — and hand XNT to builders; the community's job is to build and bring users.
Q: How will X1 attract Solana developers? — asked by XNM Kitten
Not by converting projects outright, Levin said, but by hedging bets — thanks to the bridge, a developer can run on both chains just by switching the RPC endpoint. He noted that Solana dropping from $200 to $80 hurt anyone who built when SOL was expensive, whereas XNT remains cheap and undistributed, meaning less sell pressure and more upside: "If I was a builder on Solana, I would for sure build stuff on X1." He contrasted X1 with well-funded but comparatively empty chains like Berachain or Celestia, which "raised a shitload of money" but lack users because speculators left once price action cooled. X1's approach, he said, is inverted — community and building come first, not fundraising as the business model.
Q: What are the biggest hurdles to mainstream adoption? — from formal community questions
- Regulatory: no issues reported — the team filed with the SEC, and Levin argues XNT's utility-token positioning gets stronger the longer the chain runs.
- Marketing, dev tools, liquidity: handled respectively by Jason (dev tools/XDEX), Leo (bridge/APIs), and Nick (validator bug hunting).
- Technical fixes: the bridge was recently upgraded from a 2-of-3 to a 4-of-5 guardian multisig after prior security issues, and an emergency multisig "transaction abort" function is in development for stuck funds.
- Community: in Levin's words, "mainstream adoption is up to the community. Can we grow and help grow the community together?"
Q: What are the top technical priorities right now? — from formal community questions
Technology itself, Levin argued, isn't the differentiator — he cited Mirror Protocol and Cardano as technically impressive projects that failed for lack of traction. His top priority is getting people to actually use the chain rather than making it "technologically superb," drawing a comparison to Coinbase's founder, who spends more energy publicly promoting crypto than arguing over technical superiority — and to Hyperliquid, which he says won on UX rather than better technology. "There's no point saying perpetuals is a thing or AI is a thing if there's no users on the chain."
Macro Outlook, Partnerships, and What Levin Wants From the Community
Q: Thoughts on the broader macro economy? — from formal community questions
Levin sees crypto in a classic pre-halving accumulation phase — Bitcoin's next halving lands April 13, 2028, roughly 600 days out, and historically the 500 days before a halving mark the best accumulation window. Near-term pressures he flagged include the Iran conflict pushing oil above $100 and tightening liquidity, capital rotation into the AI trade (which he expects to cool), and a queue of anticipated IPOs — SpaceX already priced without breaking markets, with Anthropic and OpenAI still to come — that could eventually rotate capital "further out on the risk curve" toward Bitcoin and crypto. He described Bitcoin as effectively "half off" around $60K, down from about $126K near X1's October launch, and expects markets to broaden as rates eventually ease and the Magnificent Seven/hyperscaler trade rotates outward.
Q: Any partnerships we haven't heard about? — asked by Recol Life
The Cayman Foundation's directors — a separate entity running the foundation — are actively working exchange and ecosystem connections. Levin noted centralized exchange listings serve two purposes at once: marketing exposure, and an alternative on/off-ramp for whenever the bridge is down.
Q: What's the marketing plan? Do you love growing organically? — asked by XNM Kitten
Levin doesn't romanticize organic growth — "it is what it is." He backs conferences, hackathons, and presentations, but conceded this year is unusually hard since "everybody lost their money" and mostly hardcore believers remain — which he considers a silver lining, since fair-weather fans who get "way too excited" tend to vanish the moment things get rough. His broader goal is educating people on why decentralization and self-custody actually matter, since he thinks most people still don't understand how Solana, or any blockchain, really works.
Q: What do you need from the community? — asked by XNM Kitten
"Be fruitful and multiply" — only half-joking, Levin's real ask is to bring more users in from X.com and keep growing the community.
Q: How did you arrive at a $1 billion valuation? — asked by XNM Kitten
"If you're not at a billion, you kind of suck" — Levin called it an aspirational, round-number target: top-5 by TVL, with XNT at $1. But he was candid that blockchain valuation is largely marketing rather than reality — unlike a company with shares that can be sold or used for acquisitions, a decentralized open-source project can't really be "sold," and 95-99% of tokens sit illiquid in the foundation. "What really matters is whether you bought XNT for 30 cents and sold it for $10."
Q: Why isn't this reaching the wider world? Crypto sites aren't picking it up. — asked by XNM Kitten
"Right now there's no crypto news of any kind. Everything is a scam and everybody's depressed and watching Netflix at home." Levin said he'd rather speak directly to the community than broadcast into a market that's largely tuned out.
Key Takeaways
| Topic | Jack Levin's Position |
|---|---|
| XEN | Dominating Ethereum gas usage despite the chain's broader decline; a simple, battle-tested contract |
| XEN Prime | Hardcapped at 10M, season-based conversion, bridges Ethereum XEN holders into X1 |
| October 6 unlock | Terminal gives new buyers a $1 floor, but can't stop sell pressure from unlocked validator tokens |
| XNM staking | Wanted, not yet built — core chain infrastructure takes priority |
| Farmers | Project Capybara's rising self-stake requirements are successfully discouraging pure farming |
| Narrative | Not AI, gaming, or perps specifically — it's opportunity: an undistributed token, SVM technology, a fresh community |
| Builders | Hedge Solana bets with X1 — cheap entry, low sell pressure, same RPC switch |
| Tech priority | User engagement over engineering perfection |
| Macro | ~600 days to Bitcoin's next halving; post-AI-IPO capital rotation should eventually favor risk assets |
| Community ask | Multiply — bring users, build, and evangelize |
| Valuation | $1B is marketing; what matters is your entry and exit price |
Watch the Full Stream
The full stream is archived on Twitch — where Levin plans to host his future streams as well — and has since been reposted to YouTube for anyone who prefers to watch or subscribe there. Follow Jack Levin on X for updates on when he goes live next.
For more on the mechanics and links discussed above, see our X1 ecosystem map and guides section, including our walkthroughs on staking XNT for liquid pXNT and the X1 Foundation validator delegation program.