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

The existing financial system was not designed with machines in mind. Instead, it was built around human limitations such as geography, 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 crypto firm Alchemy. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan stated. The disparity is evident everywhere: banks have limited hours due to human constraints, payments are tied to countries because people live in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate differently. They do not sleep, have no physical location, and do not use banks or credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly involved in transactions, not just assisting with tasks. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan said in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency starts to look like 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. These tools enable companies to build and scale on-chain products without managing the complexity of blockchain systems themselves. Traditional finance is based on friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. While this is normal for humans, it is impractical for AI agents, which require seamless, borderless transactions at any time, often in small increments. They also need programmability and direct control over money via code, without relying 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 said. The complexity of cryptocurrency, 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, with zeros and ones being 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 designed for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built primarily for humans to crypto tools 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. Moving forward, AI agents will utilize crypto 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 crypto wallet, but you can't do the same with a bank account," 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 at 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.