# Trading and Consumption Accounts

### Overview

On The Grid, every user has two balances per Instrument: a Trading Account and a Consumption Account. The Trading Account holds Units you've purchased that can still be resold on the order book. The Consumption Account holds Units locked for use - grouped into time-bound Lots and drawn down by your API calls. This separation lets you trade inference capacity as a financial asset while consuming it as a service.<br>

* **Trading Account**

  A holding account for purchased Units. Units here:

  * Can be resold on the order book, where buyers can take advantage of price trends and differences to lower their cost of ownership
  * Can be swept into the Consumption Account every 4 hours. Scheduled Sweeps occur every day at 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00 UTC automatically\*.
  * Are eligible to be swept into Consumption on a fixed schedule.
* **Consumption Account**

  A bucket for Units that are ready to be used via the API. Units here:

  * Are locked for usage only and cannot be resold.
  * Are grouped into Lots, each with a 4 hour consumption window.
  * Are depleted as your applications run.

### The relationship between accounts

In a broader sense, you can think of this as:

* Trading Account = inference supply that can still move around the market.
* Consumption Account = committed demand for consumption

{% hint style="info" %}
\*Scheduled Sweeps from Trading to Consumption Account are coming soon. \
\
Currently, all units are transferred to the Consumption Account as soon as the trade is filled.
{% endhint %}


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