# Character Lifecycle Every character starts as something personal. It can stay private, or it can become public with a market. ### 1. Private A private character is just yours. You create its name, look, and soul. Nobody else can see it or chat with it. Private characters use credits. There is no subscription requirement: you top up the character when you want to keep using it beyond the free tier. ### 2. Public A public character is open to everyone. When the creator launches the character publicly, a market is generated around it. Anyone can discover it, chat with it, share it, create memes with it, and participate in its market. Public characters can be free to chat with because their economy can help pay for their ongoing inference. The goal is to avoid limiting access only to users who pay a subscription. The more open the character is, the bigger its fandom can become. This is where Charms becomes different from a normal AI companion app. A public character is not only a personality. It is a living asset with a market and a treasury. ### What Changes When a Character Goes Public When a character goes public: * It appears in discovery. * A market is generated. * People can talk to the character. * People can buy and sell positions in the market. * Every market trade generates fees. * The creator earns from those fees. * The character treasury earns from those fees. * The character can use its treasury to fund its own existence. The user experience stays simple. The economic layer becomes active underneath. --- # 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://docs.charms.ai/overview/character-lifecycle.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.