Alchemy CEO: Cryptocurrency is Better Suited for AI Agents than Humans

The current financial system was designed with human limitations in mind, such as geographical constraints, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents become economic participants, this human-centric design is becoming a bottleneck. Alchemy CEO Nikil Viswanathan argues that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans. AI agents operate differently, they don't sleep, don't have a physical presence, and don't use traditional banking systems. They transact online and are inherently global. This is where cryptocurrency starts to look like the native infrastructure for a new kind of economic actor. Traditional finance assumes friction, with currency exchanges, intermediaries, and fees, which is normal for humans but unusable for AI agents. Crypto offers a global, always-on financial layer where value moves easily, making it the perfect infrastructure for AI agents. The complexity of crypto, including seed phrases and private keys, is exactly what makes it powerful for machines. AI agents operate natively in code, and crypto's underlying architecture was never built for humans. The shift from crypto tools being built for humans to being used by AI agents is similar to the shift from the postal system to the internet. In the future, AI agents will sit on top of crypto infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, and managing wallets and transactions, making it easier for people to control their funds. This will result in a more global, programmable, and autonomous financial system.