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

The current financial system was never intended for use by machines, instead being built around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents begin to participate in the economy, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the crypto firm Alchemy. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The discrepancy 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 don't require sleep, don't have a physical location, don't visit banks, and don't use cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of conducting transactions independently. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan explained 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 crypto infrastructure company, provides developers with the necessary tools and services to build blockchain-based applications, including APIs, node infrastructure, and data services that support everything from financial apps to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and games. Traditional finance is built 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, and need programmability, direct control over funds via code, and systems that don't 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. "Cryptocurrency is the global infrastructure for money that agents need," Viswanathan stated. What has long made cryptocurrency challenging for humans, including the use of seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is precisely what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code. "Agents read in zeros and ones, which is their native language," Viswanathan said. "That's also the language of cryptocurrency." For years, cryptocurrency has attempted to adapt itself into something more user-friendly for humans. However, its underlying architecture was never truly designed for human use. Viswanathan compared the shift from cryptocurrency tools being built primarily for humans to cryptocurrency tools being used by AI agents to the earlier transition from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write a letter, purchase a stamp, and mail it to share messages globally, modern communication is much faster. "Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it's designed for computers," Viswanathan said. "Cryptocurrency is similar." Looking ahead, Viswanathan believes that AI agents will operate on top of cryptocurrency infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real-time, making it easier for people to control their funds. "You can write code to manage a cryptocurrency wallet," Viswanathan said. "You can't write code to manage a bank account in the same way." The result would be a financial system that is more global, more programmable, and more 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.