Alchemy CEO Claims Crypto Was Designed for AI, Not Humans

The current financial system was not designed with machines in mind, but rather around human constraints such as geographical location, sleep patterns, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate in the economy, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "One could argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The discrepancy is evident everywhere: banks have limited hours due to human operation, payments are tied to countries because humans reside in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents do not 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 online and inherently global, Viswanathan explained. This is where crypto starts to appear as 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 based on the assumption of friction, with cross-border payments involving currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays, and fees. However, for AI agents, this is impractical. 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 provides 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, such as seed phrases and private keys, is precisely what makes it powerful for machines. Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code and can read zeros and ones, which 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. Looking ahead, AI agents will utilize crypto infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions, and optimizing capital flows in real-time, allowing people to control their funds more easily. The result will be a financial system that is more global, programmable, and autonomous, with a layered structure consisting of traditional finance and crypto as the base, an agent layer operating on top, and a human interface above that.