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

The conventional financial system was never intended to accommodate machines. Instead, it was built around human limitations such as geographical constraints, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate 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 cryptocurrency was designed for AI agents, not humans,' Viswanathan said. The disparity is evident everywhere. Banks have limited operating hours because humans do, 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 require sleep, have no physical presence, and do not use banks or credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of performing transactions independently. All transactions for agents are conducted online and are inherently global, Viswanathan explained in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency starts 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 create 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, this is normal, but for AI agents, it 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. 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, agents operate natively in code. 'Agents read in zeros and ones, which is their native language,' Viswanathan explained. 'This is also the language of cryptocurrency.' For years, cryptocurrency has attempted to become more human-friendly, but its underlying architecture was never intended for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built primarily for humans to crypto tools being used by AI agents to the earlier shift from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write and mail letters to share messages globally, modern communication is much faster. 'Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers,' Viswanathan said. 'Cryptocurrency is similar.' Moving forward, AI agents will sit on top of 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 cryptocurrency wallet,' Viswanathan said. 'You cannot write code to manage a bank account in the same way.' 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.