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Ostrum runs on a contribute-to-unlock model. It’s a loop between two roles, and most participants end up playing both.
The Ostrum loop: contribute, Ostrum prices it, earn, consume, and back to contributeThe Ostrum loop: contribute, Ostrum prices it, earn, consume, and back to contribute
1

Contribute

You tell Ostrum something valuable you know first-hand, and you attach proof. In the case of our launch markets, proof can be a market-making proposal or a formal listing offer from an exchange. Proof is required, and it’s reviewed by the verification system. It doesn’t persist: proof is cached temporarily while the verification system reviews it, then purged once a verdict is reached. Intake is conversational and takes a few minutes. Exact values get converted to buckets and ratios at submission, and the raw figures are destroyed. Every accepted contribution also mints a non-transferable NFT: it represents the information you contributed and carries a claim to a portion of what people pay to access it.
2

Ostrum prices it

There’s no auction and no bidding. Your contribution is never shown to anyone to be priced. Ostrum prices it directly, from two inputs: the information itself (the stakes riding on the decisions it informs, how dispersed answers are in that segment, how scarce the data point is) and the market’s activity in areas relevant to it, meaning what participants are actually querying and consuming. Market activity feeds the price, but Ostrum is the one setting it. Valuable, scarce information earns more. Commoditized information earns less.
3

Earn

Ostrum pays what we expect is the fair value of your information upfront. This isn’t vesting: the upfront payment is yours, full stop. Then, as people consume your information, a portion of what they pay accrues to your NFT on top of the upfront price. First to supply a true fact earns the most. Corroborators who prove it true earn too, but a smaller portion of the ongoing earnings.
4

Consume

Contributing gets you access to the network, and soon those with nothing to contribute will be able to buy credits on the open market for access too. You spend credits to learn: ask questions in plain language and get answers grounded in the pooled dataset, labeled with sample size and confidence. Understand what this is. This information has only ever lived behind closed doors, priced into every deal against you, and this is the first time you can simply buy it. No warm intro, no privileged access, just a fair price.
During beta, access is earned by contributing. Purchasable credits for consumers who hold budget rather than information come later. See Accessing data.