Alchemy CEO Claims Crypto Was Designed for AI Agents, Not Humans

The current financial system was not designed to accommodate machines, but rather 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-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "You can argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans," he said. The discrepancy is evident everywhere, from banks having operating hours to suit humans, to payments being tied to countries where people reside. Credit cards also assume a 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 look like 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 unusable, as they require seamless transactions across borders, often in small increments, and need 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. What has long made cryptocurrency difficult for humans, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is exactly what makes it powerful for machines, Viswanathan noted. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code, and cryptocurrency's underlying architecture was never really built for humans. 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. 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, making it easier for people to control their funds. The result would be a more global, programmable, and autonomous financial system, with a layered future consisting of traditional finance and crypto as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that.