A former employee of The Ethereum Foundation is suing the nonprofit, alleging disability discrimination, retaliation, unfair employment practices, and related claims, reports The Denver Post. 'The Ethereum Foundation Mandate,' a 38-page vision for the next 1,000 years, was distributed to the organization's ~250 employees in Q1 this year. On page 11 of the finalized document, there was a bizarre and rather extreme oath. This illustrated page essentially formed a suicide pledge and, unsurprisingly, scores of people didn't want to sign.
At the top of this story, you can see page 11 from the evidence submitted in the case of FULTON v. ETHEREUM ASIA PACIFIC LIMITED et al. Perhaps one could say it was illustrated like an anime version of Grimm’s fairy tales. Indeed, it contains more than a touch of the macabre, like all the best such stories.
On this particular page, reproduced in court documents, anyone working on the software used by the Ethereum Federation (EF) was asked to ensure that the source code and associated documents remained free and publicly accessible. Underlining this pledge, folks had to vow to “take his or her own life with a sword upon failure to uphold any of the pledges in this license, or upon modification or removal of any part of this license.” The message about falling on one’s sword was repeated in the illustration by a cartoon cat.
Agree or leave without delay
At the end of the 38-page document, employees picked one of two options, basically agreeing to commit to the direction of the mandate, or not. Choosing the former meant you signed up to this cult-like pact. The latter choice would mean that you were requesting a settlement payment and would “leave the EF without delay.”
This unsettling contractual suicide agreement went out as a draft in late February, and The Denver Post says that resistance to signing such an agreement was “swift and vocal.” About 80 of the Ethereum Federation’s 250-ish employees voted to nix the suicide pledge. Nevertheless, when the mandate was sent around in its final version in March, the suicide pledge remained – albeit in the form of a text with illustration – rather than in the body of the copy.
As the ‘Source Seppuku License’ had basically morphed into an artwork, rather than part of the main text of the mandate, the EF would subsequently argue that the suicide pledge to employees was just “part of the artwork of the mandate.” Importantly, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin insists that the artwork was “not meant to be taken literally.”
In March, resistance to the mandate, led by then-employee Kayleen Fulton, culminated in a response letter endorsing the general direction of the document but declining to tick any boxes, and declining to resign. Though this formal but quiet revolt bore 53 names, only Boulder woman Fulton and a colleague who helped organize the letter were fired.
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The reasoning for Fulton being singled out was simple, according to a quote published by the Denver Post, cryptocurrency founder Buterin reportedly said that you should not “reward making a stink with outcomes.” By September, eight senior employees had left the EF, with most of the 53 protest letter signees either resigning or being terminated.
Fulton, who was on a salary of $195,000 per year as a lead in the Protocol Support team, is seeking unspecified damages from the Ethereum Foundation. She also disclosed her ovarian cancer diagnosis to the company on March 24, 2026, roughly two weeks before being fired. The lawsuit thus also claims interference with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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