By default a node is listed on the marketplace for everyone. A private node is hidden from the public list and open only to accounts that redeemed one of your invitations.
Uses
- Friends and family: share your server with a few people.
- A team: give colleagues access and revoke it when they leave.
- Your own use: the node's owner gets access automatically, but operator accounts manage nodes and can't connect, so use it from a separate user account you invite.
How access works
- Switch Private node on when you register the node or later in its Settings. The node's own account is granted access automatically.
- An Invitations button then appears for the node. Each invitation gives a code (
PVT-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX) and a link, shown once. See Invitations. - Invited users see the node on the marketplace with an Invited badge and connect to it like any other node.
Price
A private node is priced and paid like a public one: users pay your price plus the 20% fee, and you claim your earnings the same way (olcRTC traffic from 20 November 2026 is charged at the network's olcRTC price instead). A private exit node has a price too, at least 0.001 TON/GB; only an entry node may be set to 0.
Switching back to public
Switching Private node off lists the node for everyone. Invitations and access already granted stay in place and come back into force if you make the node private again, so revoke the ones you no longer want first.
ProofKit reviews a node again when it becomes public. Until then it is not routed to automatically and users reach it by choosing it in the marketplace; see Your Nodes.
ProofKit's admins can also grant a partner service access to a node for its users; such grants don't appear in your Invitations list.