Crypto Designed for AI, Not Humans, According to Alchemy CEO

The existing financial system was not created with machines in mind. Instead, it was built around human limitations such as geographical constraints, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate in the economy, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of crypto firm Alchemy. "You can argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The mismatch between traditional finance and AI agents is evident everywhere. Banks have limited operating hours because humans do, payments are tied to countries because people live in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate differently. They do not sleep, have no physical presence, and do not use banks or credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of transacting on their own. All transactions for AI agents are online and inherently global, Viswanathan noted. This is where crypto starts to look like the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor, rather than an alternative financial system. Alchemy, a crypto infrastructure company, provides the underlying tools and services developers need to build blockchain-based applications. It offers APIs, node infrastructure, and data services that power everything from financial apps to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and games, enabling companies to build and scale on-chain products without managing the complexity of blockchain systems themselves. Traditional finance is built on the assumption of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is not feasible. They require seamless transactions across borders, at any time, often in small increments. They also need programmability, direct control over money via code, and systems that do not depend on physical infrastructure or identity. Crypto offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value moves as easily as data, Viswanathan said. What has long made crypto challenging for humans, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is exactly what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, AI agents operate natively in code. "Agents read in zeros and ones. That's their native language," Viswanathan said. "That's also the language of crypto." For years, crypto has tried to abstract itself into something more human-friendly. However, its underlying architecture was never really built for humans in the first place. Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built primarily for humans to crypto tools being used by AI agents to the shift from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write out a letter, buy a stamp, and mail it to share messages across the globe, communication in the modern era is much faster. "Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it's designed for computers," Viswanathan said. "Crypto is similar." Looking ahead, Viswanathan believes that AI agents will sit on top of crypto infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing flows of capital in real-time, allowing people to control their funds more easily. "You can write code to manage a crypto wallet," Viswanathan said. "You can't write code to manage a bank account in the same way." The result would be a financial system that is more global, more programmable, and more autonomous. Viswanathan envisions a layered future: traditional finance and crypto as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that. "Just like computers operate the internet and humans use it, agents will operate finance," he said.