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

The existing financial framework was not designed with machines in mind. Instead, it was built 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 Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the cryptocurrency firm Alchemy. Viswanathan argues that cryptocurrency was essentially built for AI agents, not humans. The disparity is evident everywhere: banks have limited operating hours because humans do, payments are tied to countries because people live in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. AI agents, on the other hand, operate differently. They do not sleep, have no physical location, do not visit banks, and do not use credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of performing transactions on their own. All transactions conducted by agents take place online and are inherently global, Viswanathan explained in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency starts to resemble 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. These tools enable companies to create and scale on-chain products without having to manage the complexity of blockchain systems themselves. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction, where cross-border payments involve currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. While this may be normal for humans, it is impractical for AI agents. Agents require seamless, borderless transactions that can occur at any time, often in small increments. They also need programmability, direct control over funds 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 can be transferred as easily as data. According to Viswanathan, cryptocurrency is the global infrastructure for money that AI agents need. The complexity that has long made cryptocurrency challenging for humans, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is precisely what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code and can read zeros and ones as their native language, which is also the language of cryptocurrency. For years, cryptocurrency has attempted to become more human-friendly, but its underlying architecture was never truly designed for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from cryptocurrency tools being built primarily 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. Looking ahead, Viswanathan believes that 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 would 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.