From zero to your first chat in five minutes.
About $5–10 in starter crypto, bought once (varies). The MOR you stake to chat comes back to your wallet after the session. The same MOR funds the next chat, and the next. There's no AI subscription. You stake MOR to chat, and it comes back. Node Neo Pro is an optional App Store subscription for the full model catalog and other app features. It doesn't pay for chats or network fees; your MOR and ETH do that. No email signup, no ABSGrafx “account” for ordinary self-custody use.
Calm, plain-language walkthrough: what self-custody really means, how to buy a few dollars of ETH on Base, how to swap for MOR. It takes the fear out, then sends you back here.
New to crypto? Start here →The 4 steps below assume you know your way around a wallet. Install, create (or import) your Node Neo wallet, fund it, chat. That's it.
Continue here ↓- ✓ An iPhone or iPad (iOS 16 or later), or a Mac with Apple Silicon (macOS 15.6 or later) for the TestFlight beta
- ✓ A debit card or bank account, if you don't already have crypto
- ✓ About $5–10 of MOR and ETH. You buy it once.
- ✓ 5 minutes
Install Node Neo
Free on the App Store for iPhone & iPad; Mac via TestFlight. No telemetry.
On a Mac: get Apple's free TestFlight app from the Mac App Store. Click the macOS button above, then click Accept and Install. Once Apple approves the Mac version, you'll be able to install it straight from the Mac App Store. Back up your key before you switch.
On iPhone or iPad: Node Neo is now on the App Store. Tap the iOS (App Store) button above on the device you'll use, then tap Get. You're in.
Create your wallet
One tap in the app. Keys never leave your device.
Open Node Neo and tap (or click, on Mac) Set up new private identity. The app generates a fresh Ethereum/Base wallet locally and stores the private key in your device's Keychain (Apple's built-in secure storage). On iPhone and iPad the key stays on that device; on a Mac it can also sync through iCloud Keychain if you turn that on. You'll be prompted to view and back up that key immediately — do it on day one. There is no “forgot password” flow. There is no support email that can recover your wallet for you. That's the whole point.
Already have a wallet? Tap Import existing identity / wallet and paste your private
key (raw 0x-prefixed hex). Your chat history is encrypted with a key derived from the wallet itself. To move
it to another device, use an encrypted backup (Settings → Backup & Reset → Export Backup).
Your wallet isn't trapped in Node Neo. It's a standard Ethereum/Base wallet (a single hex private key — nothing proprietary). The same key opens in MetaMask, Rainbow, Coinbase Wallet, Frame, or any other standard wallet — and any private key from those wallets imports straight into Node Neo. Your MOR and ETH live on the Base network; Node Neo is just the app you use them in. If you ever want to leave, or a Mac beta build expires before the next one arrives, your funds are one key import away in any wallet you trust.
Read this before you do anything else: your wallet is yours alone.
- Lose the private key → funds gone, forever. No "forgot password," no support team, no recovery. Not us, not Apple, not Vitalik himself.
- Back it up on day one. Settings → Identity & wallet → Export Private Key. Save to paper and an encrypted password manager (1Password, Bitwarden).
- Treat it like a bank password, stricter. Don't screenshot to your camera roll. Don't email it. Don't paste it into ChatGPT.
Why is there no recovery?
The trade-off — nobody can suspend your account, freeze your funds, or read your prompts — only works because nobody, including us, holds your key for you. That's the deal: total control, total responsibility.
Fund your Node Neo wallet
~$5 of MOR + ~$2 of ETH on the Base network.
MOR funds your chat sessions (locked per session and returned after it ends, so it recycles). ETH on Base pays for the on-chain transactions that open and close those sessions (a few cents each). In one line: ETH = postage stamps you use up; MOR = library card you keep.
Already have ETH and MOR in another wallet?
- In Node Neo: Settings → Identity & wallet → Add MOR. Copy your address.
- In your other wallet (Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, Rainbow, etc.), send your MOR and ~$2 of ETH to that address. Use the Base network.
- Wait ~10–30 seconds. Both balances appear on Node Neo's home screen.
Verify the address before you send.
- Match the first 4 and last 4 characters exactly. Wrong address = funds gone, no “cancel.”
- Stay on Base. Same address shape on every network — Base is the only one that lands here.
- Nervous? Send $1 first. Confirm it lands in Node Neo, then send the rest.
Don't have ETH or MOR yet?
Read New to crypto? Start here — a calm ~25-minute walkthrough that covers buying ETH on Base, swapping for MOR, and sending it here. Then come back to step 4.
Open Node Neo, pick a model, chat
You're done with the boring part.
Back in Node Neo:
- On the home screen, browse the model list (or use Search models…). Free shows a weekly set of about eight models; Pro shows the full catalog. Any general-purpose chat model is a fine first pick. If you want to be strict about privacy, turn on the Max Privacy filter. That limits the list to providers running inside an attested TEE: a locked-down area of the provider's chip, built so the people running it can't see your prompt.
- Tap your model. The Start session sheet shows the exact MOR stake before you confirm. Tap Start chat and the app opens the session on-chain in a few seconds.
- Type. Stream. Chat. Your messages are encrypted at rest with a wallet-derived key — nothing in the local database is readable without your wallet.
- When you're done, close the session. Unused MOR comes back right away. The rest stays on hold until midnight UTC, then comes back too. The app returns it for you, or use Recover MOR in Where’s My MOR.
- Forget to close it? While the app is open it checks every 15 minutes for expired sessions and closes them. Your MOR comes back as long as you open the app now and then.
We know “buy crypto first” is real friction. We're looking at free starter credits so you can try Node Neo before you ever touch an exchange.
See the roadmap →Common questions
Two pieces, and only one of them gets used up (in pennies):
- MOR — your library card on the Morpheus network. Each session locks some MOR as a "right-to-use" deposit. Unused MOR comes back right away when the session closes. The rest stays on hold until midnight UTC, then comes back too. The same MOR funds chat after chat, indefinitely. $5 of MOR is enough for most users to chat for a long, long time — it isn't a budget that depletes, it's a stake that recycles.
- ETH — network gas. A small amount of ETH per on-chain action (open session, close session, transfer) on Base, usually a few cents or less. This is the only piece that gets used up.
What you don't pay: a $20-a-month AI subscription that cuts you off the day you stop. (Node Neo Pro is optional. It adds the full catalog and app features, and never pays for chats.) The more sessions you want running concurrently, the more MOR you'll need locked at once — but for one-chat-at-a-time use, your starter MOR keeps working. (See the Morpheus pricing & staking calculator to model heavier use.) You always see the stake quote before you open a session, so there are no surprises.
Then your funds and your encrypted chat history are gone, permanently. Nobody — not us, not Apple, not the Morpheus team — can recover them. That's the cost of self-custody, and it's also the whole reason the privacy guarantee works (no key custodian = no one to subpoena, breach, or pressure). Back up the key on day one (Settings → Identity & wallet → Export Private Key) and store it somewhere safe: paper, an encrypted password manager (1Password / Bitwarden), ideally both.
Yes — bridge.base.org is the official Coinbase bridge. Worth it only if you already hold a fair amount of ETH on Ethereum mainnet. For small amounts, buying fresh on Base costs less.
Not for Node Neo itself — the app has its own wallet baked in. You'll only need an external wallet to connect to Uniswap for the ETH→MOR swap (most people use Coinbase Wallet's built-in browser, or MetaMask, or Rainbow). After the swap, send the MOR to your Node Neo address and you're done with external wallets.
That said: your Node Neo wallet is a standard Ethereum/Base wallet. Export the private key from Settings → Identity & wallet and you can import it into MetaMask, Rainbow, Coinbase Wallet, Frame, a hardware wallet — anywhere that takes a raw private key. Your MOR and ETH live on Base, not "inside Node Neo," so you're never locked in.
Apple expires every TestFlight build 90 days after upload — not our choice, just how TestFlight works. Before then we'll push a new build and TestFlight will prompt you to update (or auto-install if you've enabled automatic updates in TestFlight's settings). This only applies to the Mac beta. On iPhone and iPad the App Store version is live now. Once Apple approves the Mac App Store version, you can switch to it.
Your wallet survives every transition — as long as you backed up your private key. Re-import it on the next TestFlight build, on the App Store version, or, if you don't want to wait, drop it into MetaMask or any other standard wallet right now. The wallet (and the funds in it) live on the Base network, not in any one app.
Node Neo itself has no ID checks (KYC), no signup, and no geographic restriction — it's just an app talking to a public protocol. The on-ramp services (Coinbase, MoonPay) have their own ID checks and country restrictions. If you already have ETH on Base from anywhere, you can skip on-ramps entirely.
Email support@nodeneo.ai — that’s the fastest way to get help with bug reports, feature requests, and “is this normal?” questions.