Traditional finance was designed for humans—with banks that close, payments tied to geography, and credit systems built on physical identity. But as AI agents emerge as economic actors, this human-centric infrastructure is becoming a liability rather than an asset, according to Nikil Viswanathan, CEO and co-founder of crypto infrastructure firm Alchemy.
"You can argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans," Viswanathan said in an interview with CoinDesk. "All transactions for agents are online. They're inherently global."
Market Context
The intersection of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency is accelerating. Major tech figures including Sam Altman have launched projects focused on identity verification in the age of AI agents, while decentralized finance protocols increasingly grapple with how machine-driven participants will reshape on-chain activity. Alchemy, which provides APIs, node infrastructure and data services for blockchain applications—from financial apps to NFTs and gaming platforms—positions itself at this intersection as infrastructure enabling both human and agent interaction with crypto systems.
Analysis
Viswanathan's argument centers on a fundamental mismatch between traditional finance's design assumptions and how AI agents actually operate. Banks have operating hours because humans sleep. Payments route through country-specific rails because people live in nations. Credit cards require physical presence and identity verification designed for biological individuals.
AI agents, by contrast, don't sleep, don't maintain residency, and don't walk into branches. They transact continuously across borders, often in micro-increments, and increasingly operate autonomously rather than merely assisting human users with tasks.
What has long frustrated human crypto users—seed phrases, private key management, direct code interaction—becomes an advantage for machines. "Agents read in zeros and ones," Viswanathan noted. "That's their native language. That's also the language of crypto."
The Alchemy CEO drew a parallel to the evolution of communication technology: "Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it's designed for computers. Crypto is similar." While humans adapted to use digital tools, email's true power emerged from its computer-native architecture—a pattern Viswanathan sees repeating in financial infrastructure.
Key Numbers
- Alchemy provides infrastructure powering applications across financial services, NFTs and gaming verticals
- AI agents operate continuously without sleep cycles or geographic constraints unlike human participants
- Traditional cross-border payments involve currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays and fees—friction that makes systems unusable for machine-native actors
- Crypto offers a global, always-on settlement layer with programmable money controlled directly via code
What to Watch
Viswanathan is scheduled to speak at Consensus Miami, where the AI-crypto intersection will likely draw significant attention. The layered architecture he envisions places traditional finance and crypto as base infrastructure, an agent abstraction layer handling complexity—wallet management, transaction execution, capital flow optimization—and a simplified human interface on top.
"Just like computers operate the internet and humans use it, agents will operate finance," Viswanathan said. For traders, the implications include potential shifts inDeFi protocol design toward machine-readable interfaces, changes in how wallet security models evolve when programmatic control replaces human custody, and whether current regulatory frameworks designed for human participants can accommodate agent-driven transactions.