> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ostrum.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Accessing data > Contribute to unlock today; buy credits down the road ## Contribute to unlock Right now there's exactly one door into Ostrum: contribute information. Access isn't for sale during beta, and that's deliberate. It keeps the pool honest, since everyone consuming the data has put their own information on the line under the same verification standards. It bootstraps the dataset, because in a young market information is the scarce side, and pricing access in information rather than money grows the asset that makes the market worth joining in the first place. And it selects for practitioners, the people whose future contributions will keep the dataset current. Contributing earns you credits, and credits are what you spend to ask questions. Better contributions earn more. The pricing mechanics are in [How you earn](/tokenomics/earning). ## What access gets you Ask questions in plain language and get answers grounded in structured data, labeled with sample size and confidence: * Typical terms for a segment, like what tier-1 exchanges charge projects at a given size * Where a specific quote sits relative to the market * How terms have moved over time Every answer is an aggregate across multiple contributions. You can't retrieve an individual submission, yours or anyone else's. Nobody can. ## How credits work Every question spends credits, and what it spends depends on the work. When you ask something, the LLM figures out the best way to answer it: which datasets to consult, and how much digging the answer actually takes. Each time it accesses a dataset on your behalf, that query spends credits. The compute behind the answer costs credits too. You're paying for both the data and the thinking. A quick question that touches one dataset costs little. A deep one that pulls from several costs more. ## Later: purchasable credits Down the road, consumption credits will be purchasable. That opens the market to consumers who hold budget rather than contributable information: funds, advisors, teams approaching their first negotiation. Purchased credits spend the same way earned ones do, and that spending is what funds ongoing contributor earnings. The contribute-to-unlock path is permanent. Buying credits will be an additional door, not a replacement. Contributors always have a way in that costs nothing but what they know.