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

The current financial system was not created with machines in mind, but rather around the constraints of human existence, including geographical boundaries, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, with the emergence of AI agents as economic participants, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder and CEO of crypto firm Alchemy. "One could argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan stated. The disparity is evident everywhere: banks have limited hours due to human limitations, payments are tied to countries because humans reside in them, and credit cards assume physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate without interruption, are not bound by geography, and do not require physical presence. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of executing transactions independently. All transactions involving agents occur online and are inherently global, Viswanathan noted in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where crypto begins 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. While this may be acceptable for humans, it is impractical for AI agents, which require seamless, instantaneous transactions across borders, often in small increments, as well as programmability and direct control over funds via code. Crypto offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. The complexity that has long made crypto challenging for humans, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is precisely what makes it powerful for machines, according to Viswanathan. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code, with zeros and ones being their native language, which is also the language of crypto. For years, crypto has attempted to become more human-friendly, but its 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. Just as email is more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers, crypto is similar. Looking ahead, Viswanathan envisions AI agents sitting 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. He sees a layered future: traditional finance and crypto 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.