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

The traditional financial system was not designed to accommodate machines, but rather was built around human constraints such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents become more involved in economic activities, this human-centric design is becoming a bottleneck, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the cryptocurrency firm Alchemy. 'One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans,' Viswanathan said. The discrepancy is evident everywhere, as banks have limited operating hours due to human limitations, payments are tied to countries where people reside, and credit cards require physical identification and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate without sleep, do not have a physical location, and do not use banks or credit cards. Instead, they conduct transactions online and are inherently global. According to Viswanathan, this is where cryptocurrency starts to look more like the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor, rather than an alternative financial system. Alchemy, a cryptocurrency infrastructure company, provides developers with the necessary tools and services to build blockchain-based applications, including APIs, node infrastructure, and data services. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is not feasible, as they require seamless transactions across borders at any time, often in small increments, and need programmability and direct control over money through code. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that - a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. The complexity of cryptocurrency, which has long made it difficult for humans to use, is actually a strength when it comes to machines, as they operate natively in code. Viswanathan compared the shift from cryptocurrency tools being built for humans to being used by AI agents to the shift from the postal system to the internet. Just as email is more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers, cryptocurrency is similar. Moving forward, AI agents will sit on top of cryptocurrency infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real time, allowing people to control their funds more easily. The result will be a financial system that is more global, more programmable, and more autonomous, with a layered structure consisting of traditional finance and cryptocurrency as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that.