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

The modern financial system was not designed with machines in mind, instead, it was built around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, 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 the crypto firm Alchemy. "You could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The disparity is evident everywhere, with banks having operating hours due to human limitations, payments tied to countries, and credit cards requiring physical identity and presence. AI agents, on the other hand, operate differently, they do not sleep, have no physical location, and do not use banks or credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of transacting on their own. All transactions for agents are online and inherently global, Viswanathan explained. This is where cryptocurrency starts to look less like an alternative financial system and more like the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor. Alchemy, a crypto infrastructure company, provides the necessary tools and services for developers to build blockchain-based applications, including APIs, node infrastructure, and data services. 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, global transactions, programmability, and direct control over funds via code, without relying on physical infrastructure or identity. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that, a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. The complexity of cryptocurrency, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting with code, is what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code, and cryptocurrency's underlying architecture was never truly built for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built for humans to 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, executing transactions, 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.