Alchemy CEO Claims Crypto Was Designed for AI, Not Humans

The conventional financial system was not designed with machines in mind. Instead, it was built around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate in economic activities, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of the 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 operating hours because humans do, payments are tied to countries because people live in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents operate differently. They do not sleep, have no physical location, do not visit banks, and do not use credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly involved in transactions, not just assisting with tasks. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan explained 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. These tools enable companies to build and scale on-chain products without managing the complexity of blockchain systems themselves. Traditional finance is based on the assumption of friction, where cross-border payments involve currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. While this is 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. Crypto offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value can be transferred as easily as data. "Crypto is the global infrastructure for money that agents need," Viswanathan said. The complexity of crypto, 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," Viswanathan explained. "This is also the language of crypto." For years, crypto has attempted to become more human-friendly, but its underlying architecture was never 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. Moving forward, AI agents will sit 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. "You can write code to manage a crypto wallet, but you cannot write code to manage a bank account in the same way," Viswanathan said. The result would be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous. Viswanathan envisions 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.