The Copilot Paradigm: Should Blockchain Be Made Fit for Humans or Just Be Left Alone?

With the advent of agentic artificial intelligence, the debate has taken a different turn. Should blockchain actually be made more accessible, or left to its own devices, conducting financial business autonomously and with dazzling efficiency while common mortals do what they do best: go fishing?

"Blockchain developers have not been very good at designing systems for regular humans," says Marc Vanlerberghe, chief strategy and marketing officer at the Algorand Foundation. Crypto has always struggled with the challenge of "how do you cross that bridge?" he said in an interview.

Now, rather than simplifying crypto for people, a growing cohort of system engineers believes the next financial system should be designed for artificial intelligence agents instead.