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

The current financial system was not designed with machines in mind, but rather around the limitations of human life, including geographical constraints, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents begin 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 said. The disparity is evident everywhere, with banks operating on human schedules, payments tied to countries, and credit cards requiring physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate differently, as 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 explained. 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. Traditional finance is built on the assumption of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is impractical. Agents require seamless, borderless transactions at any time, often in small increments, as well as programmability and direct control over money via code. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that - a global, always-on financial layer where value can move as easily as data. The complexity that has long made cryptocurrency challenging for humans, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting with code, is precisely what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code, and cryptocurrency's underlying architecture was never truly 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. In the future, 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. The result will be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous, with a layered structure consisting of traditional finance and cryptocurrency as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that.