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

The current financial system was not designed with machines in mind, but rather around human limitations such as geographical location, 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 Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. 'It can be argued that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans,' Viswanathan stated. The disparity is evident everywhere, with banks operating on human schedules and payments tied to countries where people reside. Credit cards also assume physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents do not sleep, do not have a physical location, and do not use banks or credit cards. Instead, they conduct transactions online and operate globally. 'All transactions for agents are online and inherently global,' Viswanathan said in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency starts to appear less like an alternative financial system and more like the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor. Alchemy, a cryptocurrency infrastructure company, provides developers with the necessary tools and services to build blockchain-based applications. The company offers APIs, node infrastructure, and data services that power various applications, including financial apps, non-fungible tokens, and games. Traditional finance is built on the assumption of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is not feasible. Agents require seamless transactions across borders, often in small increments, and need programmability and direct control over funds via code. Cryptocurrency provides exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. 'Cryptocurrency is the global infrastructure for money that agents need,' Viswanathan said. The complexity of cryptocurrency, including seed phrases and private keys, is exactly what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, AI agents operate natively in code and can read zeros and ones. 'Agents read in zeros and ones, which is their native language, and also the language of cryptocurrency,' Viswanathan stated. For years, cryptocurrency has tried to become more user-friendly for humans, but its underlying architecture was never designed for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from cryptocurrency being built for humans to being used by AI agents to the shift from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write and mail letters to communicate, modern communication is much faster. 'Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers,' Viswanathan said. 'Cryptocurrency is similar.' Moving forward, AI agents will operate on top of cryptocurrency infrastructure, handling complexity automatically and managing wallets, transactions, and capital flows in real-time. This will allow people to control their funds more easily. 'You can write code to manage a cryptocurrency wallet, but you cannot write code to manage a bank account in the same way,' Viswanathan said. The result will be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous. Viswanathan envisions a layered future, with traditional finance and cryptocurrency 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.