According to Alchemy's CEO, Cryptocurrency is Better Suited for AI Agents than Humans

The existing financial system was not designed with machines in mind, instead, it was built around human constraints such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate in the economy, this human-centric design is becoming a limitation, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The disparity is evident everywhere, with banks operating on human schedules and payments tied to specific countries. In contrast, AI agents do not require sleep, have no physical presence, and do not use traditional banking systems or credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of conducting transactions on their own. All transactions conducted by agents are online and inherently global, Viswanathan explained. This is where cryptocurrency starts to appear as 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. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is not feasible. Agents require seamless, borderless transactions that can occur at any time, often in small increments, and need programmability and direct control over funds via code. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that - a global, always-on financial layer where value can move as easily as data. "Cryptocurrency is the global infrastructure for money that agents need," Viswanathan stated. The complexity of cryptocurrency, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is actually a strength when it comes to machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code and can read zeros and ones, 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 cryptocurrency tools being built primarily for humans to being used by AI agents to the shift from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write and mail letters, 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." In the future, 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 will be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and 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.