# Surplus An economic network (economic space) accounts for its surplus as stake appreciation, not as money accumulation. In other words, the protocol does not define surplus as a positive balance of credits like with “profit” but as a positive change in stake price. The stake valuation includes the balance of other tokens, including other participants’ stakes, commodities, and credit. An economic space can hold a surplus in the treasury or distribute it as dividends that do not need to be transformed into credit, but can remain in the same underlying token. An economic space’s stake represents access to its underlying performance, resulting outputs, and network assets. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://glossary.ecsa.io/surplus.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.