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

The current 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 more involved in economic activities, this human-centric design is becoming a hindrance, according to Alchemy co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. "One could argue that cryptocurrency was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said. The discrepancy is evident everywhere: banks have limited hours due to human constraints, payments are tied to countries because people live in them, and credit cards require physical identity and presence. In contrast, AI agents do not require rest, have no physical location, and do not use traditional banking services or credit cards. Moreover, they are increasingly capable of conducting transactions on their own. "All transactions for agents are online and inherently global," Viswanathan explained in an interview. This is where cryptocurrency starts to resemble the native infrastructure for a new kind 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 not feasible. Agents require seamless, borderless transactions that can occur at any time, often in small increments, and 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 stated. 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, agents operate natively in code and can read zeros and ones as their native language, which is also the language of cryptocurrency. For years, cryptocurrency has attempted 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 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, cryptocurrency is similar. Moving forward, AI agents will utilize crypto 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 crypto wallet, but you cannot write code to manage a bank account in the same way," 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 as computers operate the internet and humans use it, agents will operate finance," he said.