A plain-language, step-by-step walkthrough — written for first-timers, not just crypto natives. Takes about 10 minutes end to end.
If you've never used crypto before, these two terms cover almost everything you'll see below.
A wallet is an app that proves you own a crypto address and lets you approve transactions — think of it as your login and your signature combined. We use MetaMask, a free browser extension. Install it from metamask.io before you start — it only takes a minute, and it's the only wallet you need for everything below.
“Gas” is the small fee paid to the network for a transaction — in this case, minting your Sentinel. Sentinels are minted on Base Sepolia, the Base testnet, so both the mint and its gas are paid in test ETH, which has no real value. Get some free from any Base Sepolia faucet (search “Base Sepolia faucet”) and send it to your MetaMask address.
The same four steps as on the home page, in full detail. Don't rush step 2 — getting the API key permissions right is the single most important part.
Click Connect Wallet in the top right of any page. MetaMask will open and ask you to approve the connection — approve it. You're not signing anything that costs money here, just proving it's your wallet.
Then head to the NFT page, pick a tier (higher tiers receive more of the signal sources we promote), and click Mint. Confirm the transaction in MetaMask. Minting is the only step with a network fee — everything after it is free.
Once the mint confirms, open your Portal — your personal dashboard, where trades, P&L, positions, and settings live from now on. Open Connect Exchange and pick whichever exchange you already have an account on (or want to open one on) — 13 supported. One NFT connects to one exchange.
Next, create a trade-only API key on that exchange. This is the part to slow down on. An API key is like a spare key to your exchange account that you hand to our bot instead of your real password — and you control exactly what that spare key is allowed to do. You want a key that can trade, and cannot withdraw. Every exchange calls this something slightly different (“Contract Trading,” “Futures Trading,” etc.) but the principle is the same everywhere: find the permissions/restrictions section when creating the key, turn trading ON, leave withdrawal OFF.
The steps above are exchange-specific and we've verified them directly. For the exchanges below, the same principle applies (find Permissions/Restrictions on your new API key, enable trading, disable withdrawal) but the exact menu wording varies — search “API key” in that exchange's own help center to find their current instructions rather than relying on a guide that could go stale.
Finally, back in the Portal's Connect Exchange flow, paste your API key and secret (and passphrase, if that exchange needs one). We validate them live against the exchange before saving — you'll see a clear “Connected” confirmation once it's working.
Once connected, your Sentinel waits, idle, until a signal source is promoted to your tier. A source is promoted only after it passes our forward test on new signals — no unproven source ever trades your account. Until then your Sentinel opens nothing.
When a source is promoted to your tier, it switches on automatically and trades on your own exchange account. Your dashboard updates in real time with open positions, P&L, and trade history. The kill switch is always one click away if you ever want to pause everything.
Coming soon — following the exact same four steps above.