Ethereum as the Unstoppable World Machine: An Interview with Tim Clancy

On this episode of Aligned Guests, host Boris sits down with Tim Clancy to dive deep into what makes Ethereum unique, the rollup-centric roadmap, and why Tim is building Sigil: a rollup that’s prioritizing launching with an exit window.

Boris: Tim, great to finally have you on the podcast. For listeners who don’t know you, can you share a bit about your background and how you got into Ethereum?

Tim Clancy: I started off as an application layer developer in the early Ethereum days. Around 2017, I really dove in, working on early NFT projects and getting my hands dirty with smart contracts. Before that, I had more conventional tech roles—at Electronic Arts and AWS—but once I saw what Ethereum was offering, the idea of a global, unstoppable machine pulled me in. I ended up writing my grad thesis on an NFT gaming application, and right from graduation, I jumped straight into working with Ethereum full-time.

Boris: Was there ever a moment where you were tempted to jump to another blockchain ecosystem?

Tim: Not even for a second. Honestly, Ethereum’s approach to decentralization and security is unique. After the Merge and the move to proof-of-stake, with all the network’s focus on validator diversity and client diversity, there’s just nothing with the same strength and fundamental security guarantees. Other chains may claim speed or cheap blockspace, but Ethereum has stuck to the hard, important problems—and that’s what keeps me here.

Boris: When you say "Ethereum offers the highest-quality block space at the lowest possible price," what does that mean in practical terms? What sets Ethereum apart?

Tim: This is straight from Josh Stark, but it’s the core of it: Ethereum gives you trust-minimized, high-quality blockspace. The blockspace isn’t just "compute"—it’s censorship-resistant, backed by economic security, and constantly improving. Features like client diversity, ongoing upgrades, and innovations like EIP-4844 (blobs) to increase throughput all contribute. Yes, sometimes it’s more expensive, but that price is what buys you network security and resistance to denial of service.

Boris: Ethereum’s culture gets called out a lot for being academic or almost too open and “researchy”. How do you see that?

Tim: I love it. The transparency—whether it’s through the EIP process, the Ethereum Magicians, or the All Core Devs call notes—makes it hard to be dishonest with the community. Unlike some other chains, Ethereum doesn’t shy away from its hard problems. We talk openly about issues like MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) and client centralization—and we don’t pretend like the problems don’t exist.

Boris: Let’s get into scaling and rollups. What are your thoughts on the rollup-centric roadmap, and what inspired you to start building your own rollup, Sigil?

Tim: The rollup-centric roadmap was an elegant move. Instead of rigid scaling via sharding, rollups enable organic scaling: anyone can build one as a smart contract on Ethereum. But—I think the execution has lagged behind. The ecosystem didn’t demand enough from rollup providers in terms of security. For example, no general-purpose rollup today offers an exit window, which means your funds aren’t truly safe from censorship, bugs, or upgradable contract risks.

I wanted to build a real app—something like ZK voting for my local library—but realized I simply couldn’t trust any L2 to be as safe as Ethereum itself. That’s why I started on Sigil. We won’t launch until it meets that bare-minimum standard of user security: an exit window that lets users escape if anything goes wrong.

Boris: What’s unique about Sigil besides having an exit window?

Tim: We're building Sigil on the OP Stack—shout out to Optimism for the open groundwork. But our focus is on user safety, not being the fastest or cheapest. When Sigil launches, anyone will be able to run a node, but you *only* need to validate it if something actually goes wrong. Normal users can ignore the infrastructure most of the time, but be confident their funds are safe.

Boris: For rollups, what’s your “must-have” features list? What comes after an exit window?

Tim: First, open-source code—projects building completely in the open. Then, final immutability: once it’s proven safe, ideally, it would freeze and stop being upgradable (like Uniswap v1). ZK rollups have huge advantages over optimistic ones in terms of finality and safety, so I'd always lean that way. And, of course, the entire stack should be open for anyone to inspect or fork.

Boris: You talked about Ethereum’s culture—miladies, viral public licenses, credible neutrality… How does that fit into your vision for Ethereum’s future?

Tim: Ethereum is all about credible neutrality: building infrastructure that doesn’t care who you are, and ensuring freedom of association—even if it sometimes gets a little weird and edgy. It’s the only blockchain ecosystem that’s never abandoned its core principles or tried to make quick money elsewhere, and I think the work I do (and communities like m’lady) are an extension of that ethos.

Boris: Why Ethereum?

Tim: If you want to build unstoppable, lasting applications—things that could outlive all of us—Ethereum is the only network building for that thousand-year mindset. It’s the only one taking the hard road, prioritizing decentralization, security, and real sovereignty.

Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQqRAJ8D4vg