Crypto Designed for AI, Not Humans, According to Alchemy's CEO

The existing financial system was created with human constraints in mind, such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents become increasingly involved in economic activities, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "Crypto was essentially built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The discrepancy is evident everywhere: banks have limited hours due to human limitations, payments are linked to countries because humans reside in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate without sleep, geographical location, or physical presence, and are increasingly capable of performing transactions. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan explained. 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 crypto infrastructure company, provides developers with the necessary tools and services to build blockchain-based applications, enabling companies to create and scale on-chain products without managing the complexity of blockchain systems themselves. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction, with cross-border transactions 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 funds via code. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. The complexity that has long made cryptocurrency challenging for humans, 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, with zeros and ones as their native language, which 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 transition from the postal system to the internet. Just as email is more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers, cryptocurrency is similar. Looking ahead, Viswanathan envisions AI agents managing complexity automatically, handling wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real-time, allowing people to control their funds more easily. The result would be a more global, programmable, and autonomous financial system, with a layered future consisting of traditional finance and cryptocurrency as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that.