According to Alchemy's CEO, Cryptocurrency was Designed for AI Systems, not Humans

The existing financial system was not created with machines in mind, instead, it was built around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate in economic activities, this human-centered design is becoming a hindrance, according to Alchemy's co-founder. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was created for AI agents, not humans," said Nikil Viswanathan, CEO and co-founder of Alchemy. The disparity is evident everywhere: banks operate during specific 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, live in specific locations, or carry physical cards, and they are increasingly capable of performing transactions. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan told CoinDesk in an interview. 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 assumes friction, such as currency exchanges, intermediaries, and fees when making international payments, which is normal for humans but unusable for AI agents. Agents require seamless, borderless transactions, often in small increments, and need programmability, direct control over money via code, and systems that do not rely on physical infrastructure or identity. Cryptocurrency provides 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 said. The complexity of cryptocurrency, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is what makes it powerful for 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 tried to become more human-friendly, but its underlying architecture was never built for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from cryptocurrency tools being built primarily for humans to cryptocurrency tools being used by AI agents to the shift from the postal system to the internet. Moving forward, AI agents will sit 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. The result would be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous. Viswanathan envisions a layered future: 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.