> ## 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.

# Introduction

> The first spot market for information

## What is Project Ostrum?

Project Ostrum is built on a simple thesis: information is an asset, and it
deserves a spot market.

Prediction markets proved that private knowledge can be priced, but only as a
derivative. What people know gets filtered through a short list of questions,
outcomes, and resolution dates, and comes out the other side as a directional
probability on a popular question. Ostrum lets you transact in the underlying
information directly. Contribute what you know and that purchases access to
what others know, at an exchange rate set by the value and scarcity of the
information itself.

## The launch markets

Ostrum's first markets are in crypto deal-terms intelligence: the
market-standard terms of market-making agreements, centralized exchange
listings, and funding rounds.

Why start there? These domains have some of the most extreme information
asymmetry in any modern market. The counterparties in these deals negotiate
hundreds of agreements a year against rich internal datasets. The projects
across the table negotiate a handful in a lifetime, often under exploding
offers designed to prevent comparison shopping. The result is a continuous
transfer of value from builders to repeat players. Ostrum's first markets
exist to reverse it.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Negotiate from evidence" icon="scale-balanced">
    Walk into a negotiation knowing what comparable projects actually agreed
    to, not what the other side tells you is standard.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Sanity-check a quote" icon="magnifying-glass-dollar">
    Someone quoted you a number. Ask the market whether it's high, low, or
    normal for a project like yours.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Earn from what you know" icon="coins">
    First-hand knowledge is an asset. Contribute it, get paid upfront, and
    keep earning every time someone consumes it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Watch the market move" icon="chart-line">
    Terms drift with the cycle. A pooled, continuously refreshed dataset
    shows where they are now, not where they were last year.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Where this goes next

Deal terms are the beginning, not the product. The same machinery works in
any domain where individuals hold scattered first-hand knowledge and face
repeat players who hold the full picture. Some obvious candidates:

* **Compensation.** Real offers and packages by role, level, and market,
  contributed by the people who received them.
* **Housing.** Rents actually paid, concessions actually won, the terms
  behind the listing price.
* **Healthcare billing.** What procedures actually cost after negotiation,
  and what insurers actually paid.
* **Insurance claims.** Real settlement amounts and timelines, by carrier
  and claim type.
* **Big-ticket purchases.** Actual transaction prices for cars, renovations,
  and contractor work, against sticker prices designed for the uninformed.

The pattern repeats everywhere: the individual negotiates once, the other
side negotiates daily. Pooled, the individuals hold the better dataset.
Ostrum is the mechanism that pools it without leaking it.

<Card title="How it works" icon="rocket" href="/how-it-works">
  The whole loop, contribute, earn, consume, in ninety seconds.
</Card>