CEO of Alchemy: Cryptocurrency is Designed for AI Agents, Not Humans

The current financial system was never designed to accommodate machines, instead being centered around human limitations such as geographical location, 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 cryptocurrency firm Alchemy. 'It can be argued that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans,' Viswanathan stated. The disparity is evident everywhere: banks have limited operating hours because humans do, payments are tied to specific countries because people reside in them, and credit cards require physical identification and presence. AI agents, on the other hand, operate differently. They do not require sleep, have no physical location, do not visit banks, and do not carry credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly involved in transactions, not just assisting with tasks. 'All transactions for agents take place online and are inherently global,' Viswanathan explained in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency begins to resemble the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor, rather than an alternative financial system. Alchemy, a cryptocurrency infrastructure company, provides developers with the necessary tools and services to build blockchain-based applications, including APIs, node infrastructure, and data services that power various products such as financial apps, non-fungible tokens, and games. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction, where cross-border payments involve currency exchange, intermediaries, delays, and fees. While this may be normal for humans, it is impractical for AI agents. Agents require seamless transactions across borders, often in small increments, and need programmability, direct control over money via code, and systems that do not rely on physical infrastructure or identity. Cryptocurrency offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. 'Cryptocurrency is the global infrastructure for money that agents need,' Viswanathan said. The complexity of cryptocurrency, 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. 'Agents read in zeros and ones, which is their native language, and that's also the language of cryptocurrency,' Viswanathan explained. For years, cryptocurrency has attempted to become more human-friendly, but its underlying architecture was never truly designed for humans. Viswanathan compared the shift from cryptocurrency tools being built primarily for humans to being used by AI agents to the transition from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write and mail letters to communicate globally, modern communication is much faster. 'Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it's designed for computers, and cryptocurrency is similar,' Viswanathan said. Moving forward, AI agents will utilize cryptocurrency infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real-time, making it easier for people to control their funds. 'You can write code to manage a cryptocurrency wallet, but you can't do the same with a bank account,' Viswanathan said. The result will be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous. Viswanathan envisions a layered future, with traditional finance and cryptocurrency 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.