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

The existing financial system was not created with machines in mind. Instead, it was built around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents become more involved in economic activities, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the crypto firm Alchemy. 'One could argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans,' Viswanathan stated. 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 assume physical identity and presence. AI agents, on the other hand, operate differently. They do not sleep, do not have a physical location, do not visit banks, and do not use 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 crypto begins to resemble 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 having to manage the complexity of blockchain systems themselves. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction. For humans, paying someone in another country involves currency exchange, intermediaries, delays, and fees, which is normal. However, for AI agents, this is impractical. Agents require seamless transactions across borders, often in small increments, and need programmability, direct control over money via code, and systems that do not rely on physical infrastructure or identity. Crypto offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. 'Crypto is the global infrastructure for money that agents need,' Viswanathan said. The complexity of crypto, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is exactly 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 crypto.' For years, crypto has attempted to abstract itself into something more human-friendly, but its underlying architecture was never built for humans in the first place. Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built primarily for humans to crypto tools being used by AI agents to the shift from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write a letter, buy a stamp, and mail it to share messages globally, communication in the modern era is much faster. 'Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it's designed for computers,' Viswanathan said. 'Crypto 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,' 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, more programmable, and more autonomous. Viswanathan envisions a layered future: traditional finance and crypto 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.