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

The existing financial system was never intended for machines, but rather built around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, with the emergence of AI agents as economic participants, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "You can argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan stated. The disparity is evident everywhere, from banks having operating hours to credit cards requiring physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate without sleep, geographical boundaries, or physical presence, and are increasingly involved in transactions. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan explained. This is where cryptocurrency starts to resemble the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor, rather than an alternative financial system. Alchemy, a crypto infrastructure company, provides developers with the necessary tools and services to build blockchain-based applications. Traditional finance is based on friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is impractical. Agents require seamless, programmable, and direct control over funds via code, without relying on physical infrastructure or identity. Cryptocurrency offers precisely that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. What has long made cryptocurrency challenging for humans, such as seed phrases and private keys, is exactly what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code, and cryptocurrency's underlying architecture was never truly designed for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built primarily for humans to crypto tools being used by AI agents to the transition from the postal system to the internet. In the future, AI agents will sit on top of crypto infrastructure, handling complexity, managing wallets, and optimizing capital flows in real-time, allowing people to control their funds more easily. The result will be a more global, programmable, and autonomous financial system, with a layered structure consisting of traditional finance and crypto as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that.