Alchemy CEO Claims Crypto Was Designed for AI, Not Humans

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 start to participate in the economy, this human-centric design is becoming a bottleneck, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of crypto firm Alchemy. Viswanathan argues that cryptocurrency was actually built for AI agents, not humans. The traditional financial system is tailored to human needs, with banks operating on human schedules and payments tied to countries where people reside. In contrast, AI agents do not require sleep, physical presence, or geographical locations, and they are increasingly capable of conducting transactions on their own. All transactions for AI agents are online and inherently global, making crypto the native infrastructure for these new economic actors. Alchemy, a crypto infrastructure company, provides the tools and services needed 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 friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is not feasible, as they require seamless, programmable, and direct control over money via code, without relying on physical infrastructure or identity. Crypto offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value moves as easily as data. The complexity of crypto, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is actually a strength for machines, as they operate natively in code. Viswanathan compares the shift from crypto tools being built for humans to 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, crypto is similar. In the future, AI agents will operate on top of crypto infrastructure, handling complexity, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real time, allowing people to control their funds more easily. This will result in a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous, with a layered structure consisting of traditional finance, crypto, an agent layer, and a human interface.