Crypto Designed for AI Agents, Not Humans, Claims Alchemy CEO

The existing financial system was not created with machines in mind. It was designed around human limitations such as geographical location, sleep patterns, paperwork, and physical presence. However, as AI agents start to participate in the economy, 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 said. The disparity is evident everywhere. Banks have limited hours due to human constraints. Payments are tied to countries because people reside in them. Credit cards require physical identification and presence. AI agents, on the other hand, operate differently. They 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 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. For humans, this is normal, but for AI agents, it is impractical. Agents require seamless cross-border transactions, often in small increments, and need programmability, direct control over funds 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 moves as easily as data. "Crypto is the global infrastructure for money that agents need," Viswanathan stated. The complexity of crypto, including seed phrases, private keys, and interacting directly with code, is 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 said. "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. 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 is designed for computers," Viswanathan said. "Crypto is similar." Moving forward, 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. "You can write code to manage a crypto 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: 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.