Alchemy CEO Claims Crypto was Designed for AI Agents, Not Humans

The current financial system was not created with machines in mind, but rather centered around human constraints 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, notes Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the crypto firm Alchemy. Viswanathan suggests that cryptocurrency was, in fact, built for AI agents rather than humans. The traditional financial system is filled with limitations, such as banking hours, geographically tied payments, and credit cards that require physical identification and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate without these constraints, never sleeping, having no physical presence, and not relying on traditional banking systems or credit cards. As AI agents increasingly engage in transactions, they require a system that is inherently global and operates online. According to Viswanathan, cryptocurrency provides the native infrastructure for this new type of economic actor. Alchemy, as a crypto infrastructure company, offers the necessary tools and services for developers to build blockchain-based applications, including APIs, node infrastructure, and data services. The traditional finance system is built 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 need to transact seamlessly across borders at any time and often in small increments. They require programmability, direct control over money via code, and systems that do not rely on physical infrastructure or identity. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value moves as easily as data. The complexity of cryptocurrency, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is challenging for humans but powerful for machines, as AI agents operate natively in code. Viswanathan compares 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. Just as email is more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers, cryptocurrency is similar. In the future, AI agents will sit on top of crypto infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real time, making it easier for people to control their funds. 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.