Crypto's True Intended Users: AI Agents, Not Humans, According to Alchemy's CEO

The existing financial system was not designed with machines in mind, but rather around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents become increasingly involved in economic activities, this human-centric design is starting to become a hindrance, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the crypto firm Alchemy. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The discrepancies are evident everywhere: banks have limited operating hours because humans do, payments are tied to specific countries because people live in them, and credit cards assume a physical identity and presence. AI agents, on the other hand, operate differently. They do not require 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 conducted online and are inherently global," Viswanathan said in an interview with CoinDesk. This is where cryptocurrency starts to look less like an alternative financial system and more like the native infrastructure for a new type of economic actor. Alchemy, a crypto infrastructure company, provides the underlying tools and services that developers need to build blockchain-based applications, including APIs, node infrastructure, and data services that power financial apps, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and games. Traditional finance is built around the concept of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. While this may be normal for humans, it is impractical for AI agents, which require seamless transactions across borders at any time, often in small increments. They need programmability, direct control over funds 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 actually a strength when it comes to machines. Unlike humans, AI agents operate natively in code and can read and write in zeros and ones. "Agents' native language is zeros and ones, which is also the language of cryptocurrency," Viswanathan said. For years, cryptocurrency has tried to become more user-friendly for humans, but its underlying architecture was never designed for humans in the first place. 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, modern communication is much faster. "Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it is designed for computers," Viswanathan said. "Cryptocurrency is similar." Looking ahead, Viswanathan believes that AI agents will operate on top of 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 cannot do the same with a bank account," Viswanathan said. The result would 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.