A Boulder woman alleges in a federal lawsuit that the Ethereum Foundation fired her after she helped organize employee opposition to a leadership document containing a suicide pledge. Kayleen Fulton filed the case Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, bringing claims that include disability discrimination, retaliation and interference with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
The foundation, a nonprofit registered in Switzerland, supports Ethereum, which the lawsuit describes as the world's second-largest blockchain network, valued at about $300 billion. According to the complaint, employees received a 38-page document on a Friday in March laying out the organization's direction for the next 1,000 years. They were instructed to commit to its principles by Monday or leave their jobs.
The document, titled “The Ethereum Foundation Mandate,” included an illustration labeled “Source Seppuku License,” apparently referring to a traditional Japanese ritual suicide. Its language linked a commitment to keeping software free and publicly accessible with a pledge to die by suicide if those obligations were not met. An accompanying employee form offered two choices: commit to implementing the mandate or request additional compensation and depart.
Objections had begun when the board circulated a draft in late February, Fulton alleged. Employees questioned whether they were being asked to pledge their lives or demonstrate loyalty to Ethereum's principles. One referred to a colleague's recent death by suicide. Nearly 80 of roughly 250 employees voted to remove the provision, according to the lawsuit. Leadership nevertheless retained its wording in the final document, moving it from the main text into an illustration.
The complaint also challenges the mandate's imagery, alleging it reflected the aesthetic of a controversial online figure associated with white nationalist ideology and pro-anorexia content. According to the lawsuit, a board member raised concerns, and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin responded that the imagery's controversial nature was part of its purpose.
Bastian Aue, then a co-executive director, told staff the pledge was “part of the artwork of the mandate” and a cultural reference that was deliberately chosen but not intended literally, according to the complaint. Managers subsequently revised the commitment form to specify that it had “nothing to do with literal seppuku.” The foundation did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.
Fulton and a colleague organized a letter to the board signed by 53 employees who supported the mandate's broad direction but would neither submit the commitment form nor resign, the lawsuit says. Aue allowed the signatories to remain employed but fired the two organizers. According to the complaint, Buterin later told Fulton, who had recently received a cancer diagnosis, that the decision concerned company dynamics and the consequences of rewarding public and internal objections.
The lawsuit describes further departures after the dispute. The board member who challenged the imagery began a sabbatical on the day Fulton was dismissed and resigned in June. By September, eight senior employees had left, and most letter signatories had resigned or been terminated, the complaint alleges. Fulton had earned $195,000 annually. Her lawsuit says the foundation employs and pays U.S. staff through employer-of-record companies. Her attorney James Bartolomei declined to comment Thursday, saying the lawsuit spoke for itself.
