According to Alchemy's CEO, Cryptocurrency is Designed for AI Agents, Not Humans

The traditional financial system was never intended for machine-based transactions, having been built around human constraints such as geographical location, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents increasingly participate in economic activities, this human-centric design is becoming a significant bottleneck, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan stated. The disparity between human and AI agent needs is evident everywhere: banks operate on human schedules, payments are tied to geographical locations, and credit cards require physical identification and presence. In contrast, AI agents do not require rest, have no physical location, and do not use traditional banking systems or cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of performing transactions independently. "All transactions for AI agents are conducted online and are inherently global," Viswanathan explained in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency starts to emerge as the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor, rather than an alternative financial system. 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 a wide range of products, from financial applications to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and games. The company enables businesses to build 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 – a normal experience for humans but unusable for AI agents. AI agents require seamless, borderless transactions at any time, often in small increments, and 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. "Cryptocurrency is the global infrastructure for money that AI agents need," Viswanathan said. 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, AI agents operate natively in code. "AI agents understand zeros and ones as their native language, which is also the language of cryptocurrency," he explained. 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 envisions AI agents operating 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. "You can write code to manage a cryptocurrency wallet, but you cannot do the same with a traditional bank account," Viswanathan said. The result would be a more global, programmable, and autonomous financial system. Viswanathan sees a layered future: traditional finance and cryptocurrency as the base, an AI agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that. "Just as computers operate the internet and humans use it, AI agents will operate finance," he said.