Author: Justin Leroux, CEO of GridPlus
Compiled by Wu Shuo Blockchain
TL;DR
A newly filed complaint reveals details behind the departures of several key contributors from the Ethereum Foundation this year. The author argues that Co-Executive Director Bastian Aue prioritized employee obedience to management over Ethereum and its values, requiring staff to sign a pledge supporting the Mission Statement or be considered resigned. Fifty-three members of the Protocol Group jointly opposed this practice, and two organizers of the letter were subsequently fired.
Wang Xiaowei, then co-executive director and board member, noted that concerns raised by employees were crucial to the foundation’s future. Vitalik Buterin continues to support retaining the controversial seppuku clause and defends the sudden implementation of the signing requirement and subsequent termination decision.
The author urges the board to acknowledge that the ultimatum and the April 6 termination decision were mistaken, and calls on the foundation to remove the controversial clauses so that employees can openly voice their objections. The article concludes by citing Auers previous standard for requiring employees to leave, implying that he should also depart the foundation under the same standard.
A lawsuit filing submitted last week provided crucial context explaining why the Ethereum Foundation has seen a series of high-profile departures this year. The "Mandate," which escalated the conflict, also clearly outlined how the foundation’s leadership was expected to act at the time and what actions are now required.
Over the past few days, I carefully reviewed this complaint and wrote this article to share my findings. The complaint details how the foundation's own actions undermined its legitimacy and negatively impacted the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
Mission Statement
On March 13 of this year, the Ethereum Foundation released a document titled "The Mandate," describing it as a hybrid of a charter, a declaration, and an internal guide for action. I’ve read many mission statements, few of which have felt both genuine and practical—but much of this document is genuinely well-written.
I have been invested in the Ethereum space for over a decade, and the values outlined in this document clearly reflect the principles that guide my commitment to this field. At its core is CROPS: ensuring Ethereum remains censorship-resistant, open-source, privacy-preserving, and secure.
I wrote this article because I have always believed that Ethereum and its decentralized technology stack are vital technologies for safeguarding individual freedom, and that they can only fulfill their potential with careful stewardship. Driven by this belief, my personal life and career have always revolved around this ecosystem. This makes writing this piece especially difficult, as the evidence clearly shows that the Ethereum Foundation’s leadership has failed to uphold this responsibility.
I aim to clarify what exactly happened, why this caused severe harm to the entire Ethereum ecosystem, and how we should correct course moving forward.
At the time of the release of the Mission Statement, internal divisions emerged at the foundation, followed by the departure of several prominent members, sparking widespread speculation. It was only after Kayleen Fulton, former head of protocol support at the foundation (known to most in the Ethereum ecosystem by her username Nixo), filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court in Colorado, that more details became publicly available.
This complaint filled in key details that sparked widespread speculation earlier this year. It alleges that newly appointed co-CEO Bastian Aue suppressed internal opposition within the foundation—including from some board members—demanding absolute compliance from everyone, despite these actions directly contradicting the Mission Statement he publicly supported.
The mission statement declares that the foundation is "not the parent, owner, or ruler of Ethereum." The document also commits: "When we make mistakes, especially significant ones, we will acknowledge them humbly and appropriately, and clearly and honestly explain why we have changed our perspective."
The document also states: “We uphold high standards and treat others with goodwill. Resilient systems are built by those who can clearly voice dissent without harming others and who maintain curiosity under pressure.” The document also describes Ethereum as a technology that enables freedom, allowing people to escape “power relationships imposed without genuine consent or where dissent comes at a heavy cost.”
The complaint names as defendants the Ethereum Foundation’s entities in Switzerland and Singapore, two nominal employer service companies, co-CEO Bastian Oehl, and Vitalik Buterin. The complaint, filed by the plaintiffs, reflects the plaintiffs’ perspective and selection of facts. The Foundation has not yet filed a response.
However, the allegations in the complaint are largely drawn directly from the foundation’s own internal communications. I know several individuals who were directly involved and have spoken with them. Based on my understanding, the complaint accurately describes what occurred.
Just days after its release, the Mission Statement was put to the test—and the test came from the very practices it championed: individuals who maintained curiosity under pressure, clearly voiced dissent, and treated others with kindness. Those who raised objections most thoughtfully and most aligned with the Mission Statement’s own standards were fired. As they left, the foundation’s culture of openness and collaboration disappeared.
Suicide clause
At the beginning, I said I largely agree with the content of the Mission Statement. So why are these people, who originally collaborated toward a shared goal they all valued, arguing over this document?
Page 11 of the Mission Statement features an illustration containing a text titled the "SOURCE SEPPUKU LICENSE." This license was sourced from the Milady NFT community, originally intended as a joke—a community that makes members of the Bored Ape community seem like Rhodes Scholars by comparison.
The only public source I could find is the Wikipedia page for Remilia, the company behind Milady NFTs. The page was created on February 5 of this year, 20 days before the draft of the Mission Statement was sent to employees. In another context, this would be at most an awkward oversight and inconsequential.
This license stipulates that any "author, maintainer, editor, or (re)distributor" who fails to fulfill any of the license's commitments, or who modifies or deletes any part of the license, must "kill themselves with a sword." The foundation added below: "If the foundation fails to uphold its solemn commitment to Ethereum, may the foundation fall on its sword." A heart follows.
Some have defended it, saying it was just an ill-timed joke by leadership, like something Michael Scott from The Office might say. But a joke only works if the audience finds it funny—and the audience here was the foundation’s employees. On February 25, board member Aya Miyaguchi shared the draft with employees, inviting them to collaborate and turn it into a document everyone could agree on.
Employees expressed their opinions in writing through their own communication channel within the board. Two days after the draft was circulated, Trent Van Epps wrote that the license “must be deleted.” By March 2, a formal proposal to remove it had been made, and 79 employees voted in favor. Someone in writing asked management whether signing the document meant they were required to commit suicide.
Another employee said a colleague had died by suicide the previous year. On March 5, Vitalik Buterin told staff that the Mission Statement was being revised, “with major changes, especially in the areas where people expressed the most concern.” At the time, it seemed the situation would be handled appropriately.
On March 13, the board released the Mission Statement. The license was left unchanged, rendered as a small image in the footer using a font similar to Comic Sans, with slanted text and glitch effects, flanked by cartoon cats. The term "seppuku" was removed from the machine-readable text and can no longer be found using the page search function.
Subsequently, the foundation wrote the entire document to the Ethereum blockchain.
This final detail has been on my mind repeatedly. Regardless of how you view the license, the board had the voting results, written objections, and an entire week—but chose to spend that week redesigning the formatting of the terms. Buterin explained this decision on the day the document was released.
He said that adopting a stance like Mozilla’s—trying not to offend anyone—is theoretically acceptable, “but we feel that such a neutral posture is not the kind of momentum we need right now.” As the complaint states: “An organization does not spend a week redesigning a clause it considers insignificant.”
Vitalik Buterin is a principled and thoughtful person, so I struggle to understand how he could find this series of actions reasonable. The objections were raised within the board’s own communication channels, including mentions of a colleague’s suicide. Three days later, he promised significant changes. Yet the joke was ultimately published exactly as written, reformatted and put on-chain.
He is not a cold or harsh person, so I can only assume that when he said, “The deliberate provocation of controversy is itself one of the intentions of this aesthetic style,” he either made a momentary misjudgment or followed advice that contradicted his own values.
Ultimatum
On March 18, Fulton spoke under her real name on the all-hands communication channel, saying: “What bothers me more than seppuku or any association with Milady is that a nearly unanimous opinion was openly ignored and then brushed off as insignificant.” She also said: “There is almost no trust between the board and other members of the organization.”
Joint Executive Director and Board Member Hsiao-Wei Wang publicly responded that Fulton’s questions are “critical to the future of the Ethereum Foundation.” Another Joint Executive Director, Bastian Oehl, replied to Fulton on the morning of Friday, March 20: “The time for raising concerns about the Mission Statement has passed. It is now time to act.”
Two hours from now, the deadline will be enforced. All employees must submit a form by the end of Monday. The form offers two options. The first option is: “I personally commit to adhering to the direction outlined in the Mission Statement, assisting in transforming it into well-justified strategies within my area of responsibility, and fully focusing on the key tasks required to implement the statement. This commitment takes effect today and remains in force until my final day at the Ethereum Foundation.”
The second item states: "I am not confident in making the above commitments and request additional months of compensation, with the intention of leaving the Ethereum Foundation as soon as possible." Anyone who does not agree with this document is asked to "make the only dignified decision: leave the Ethereum Foundation." The form also states: "Failure to submit this form will be considered a decision to resign."
Someone asked why the default option was to terminate employment. Auerswald wrote: “Leaving must be the default to ensure that everyone who stays has made an active commitment.” Someone asked who agreed to join the suicide pact. Auerswald replied: “If you’re asking who agreed to include it, I did.”
An engineer asked whether signing the form meant he had to commit suicide. He was told that the oath was “part of the illustration of the Mission Statement, and like other elements within it, a cultural reference. We intentionally chose it but did not intend for it to be taken literally.” Later that day, the form was revised to explicitly state that this commitment “has nothing to do with actual seppuku.”
He clearly didn’t realize how absurd it was: an organization revised a form requiring employees to pledge loyalty, specifically clarifying that signing did not require actual suicide, while still insisting everyone must sign to keep their job.
The next morning, Buterin wrote that the suddenness of the events was intentional: “Such decisive shifts are not well suited to be designed by committees, so we chose an undemocratic approach to announce this.” The submission deadline was later extended by two days, and the signature requirement remained in effect.
Joint letter
At this moment, those truly involved in building Ethereum took the actions advocated by the Mission Statement. From March 24 to 25, researchers and coordinators from the protocol group drafted a collective response—they are normally responsible for advancing the upgrade process of the Ethereum protocol itself.
Tim Beiko, the protocol group lead and Fulton’s direct manager, had previously removed management from the channel where the joint letter was being drafted, to allow employees to speak freely. He also reminded everyone: “For many people, leaving is not a viable option due to economic, benefits, and other reasons.”
On March 25, Fulton issued and publicly released the letter in her own name, addressed to the two co-CEOs, the board, and all employees. She coordinated the drafting of the letter with Van Eps. The letter stated:
We align with the overall direction of the Mission Statement, but under these conditions, we cannot sincerely commit to it. We intend to continue contributing to Ethereum in accordance with the values of CROPS and autonomy. We will continue fulfilling our respective responsibilities and will not resign. Many of us signed the commitment to the Mission Statement under pressure, fearing the loss of our jobs and livelihoods.
We believe they filled out this form under duress, and their selections are meaningless.
Among the Ethereum Foundation employees I know who signed this commitment, all told me they strongly opposed this practice but felt they had to keep their jobs. They were told they had a choice, but the only options presented were to sign or abandon the cause they had devoted themselves to entirely. One person I spoke with at the time said that both they and their entire team were “demoralized,” and trust in the foundation’s leadership had completely collapsed.
For these individuals, Ethereum is far more than a job—it’s a cause deeply personal to them. Yet their voices have been set aside, and decision-making power has been placed in the hands of a leader who has just told them that the time for input is over.
The letter was initially signed by 49 individuals and eventually grew to 53, representing approximately half of the protocol group. It affirmed the direction of the Mission Statement, refused to make commitments under duress, and clearly stated that the signatories would continue their work. The letter contained no threats whatsoever. It almost verbatim embodied the宣言’s principles of “expressing dissent clearly without harming others” and “maintaining curiosity even under pressure.”
At the time, one signatory wrote that the letter "allowed us to reclaim a bit of our agency" when employees felt they had lost autonomy and a voice.
Two days later, the ultimatum expired. On March 27, Auers announced that he would “interpret the signatures on the group’s joint letter as expressing dissatisfaction with the process and forms, while also acknowledging that each signatory remains committed to the content of the Mission Statement.” He added, “If I had the chance to do it again, I would certainly handle many aspects differently.”
He also stated that he takes this personal responsibility "very seriously" and is committed to ensuring that such incidents do not occur again at the Ethereum Foundation. Initially, all 53 signatories retained their jobs, suggesting the letter had an effect.
20 minutes is enough to change a lot.
On Monday, April 6, at 8:10 AM, Auer issued a lengthy statement to all employees explaining how the foundation makes decisions. The statement said employees may raise concerns “for decision-makers to consider, not to exert pressure.” “The tone of expression matters, especially in public settings. If you find yourself becoming emotionally charged, you have likely shifted from offering feedback to applying pressure.”
If well-reasoned opinions fail to bring about change and have "undermined your confidence in the Ethereum Foundation," then "seeking ways to contribute to Ethereum outside the Foundation may be better for you, the Foundation, and Ethereum itself."
At 8:30 a.m., Au fired Trent Van Eps, one of the organizers of the open letter, during a video call without providing a reason. At 9:00 a.m., he fired Fulton. Seven months earlier, Bako had rated Fulton as “far exceeding expectations” in her performance review and granted her a 21.9% raise.
During the call, Auer told Fulton that the termination was his sole decision. She had “performed well in her previous role,” was “widely supported by her colleagues,” and had “shown no deficiencies” in carrying out her responsibilities. He refused to explain the reason for the termination, instead offering to continue paying her salary for one year on the condition that she seek employment elsewhere.
Thirteen days ago, Fulton notified Auer, Wang Xiaowei, Miyaguchi Aya, and the Human Operations department in writing that he had been diagnosed with cancer, was beginning treatment, and requested to maintain his current employment relationship. Auer, Wang Xiaowei, and Miyaguchi Aya did not respond.
That afternoon, Fulton received a separation agreement requiring her to waive all potential claims and containing an arbitration clause in Singapore. She had only three days to sign it; failure to do so would result in termination “with no severance or other benefits.” Her health insurance expired at the end of the month. Of the 53 signatories of the open letter, the two who were fired were precisely those who had organized the letter.
Within less than a week, two of the three coordinators of the protocol group were announced to be departing, including Beiko, while the third began an extended leave. Wang Xiaowei, the co-executive director who previously stated that employee concerns were “critical to the future of the Ethereum Foundation,” went on leave on the same day the two were dismissed and resigned in June. The wave of departures continued through September.
By then, the protocol support team had been disbanded, and most of the signatories of the letter had resigned or been terminated.
Regardless of how Auers perceived the wording of the Mission Statement, he effectively demanded employee compliance, while the foundation’s publicly stated principles were set aside.
When principles become mere decoration
At the time, as an outside observer, I found it baffling that the foundation was inflicting harm on itself. Many respected long-term contributors were forced to leave—some fired, others pushed out to the point where they could no longer stay. The very group of people who had worked alongside me for the past decade and were the most dedicated to this ecosystem suddenly departed en masse, with no explanation offered to the outside world. Occasionally, someone hinted that they were bound by confidentiality agreements. I simply couldn’t understand the reasons behind it.
The complaint includes detailed records using the leadership's own words to fill in these missing pieces.
About three and a half weeks after the two employees were fired, Buterin explained the two terminations to Fulton during a recorded conversation. He admitted that the employees should have been given several weeks to decide, but were instead given only three days to respond. Fulton asked Buterin how he would view an organization that fired an employee immediately after she disclosed her cancer diagnosis, citing organizational alignment as the reason. Buterin did not challenge the premise of the question.
He said the issue is “what kind of behavior you want to encourage within the Ethereum Foundation,” because “if making a fuss gets you what you want, people will learn that to prompt change from the foundation, you just need to create a stir both internally and externally.”
The mission statement declares that Ethereum exists to free people from "power relationships imposed without genuine consent, or where dissent comes at a heavy cost." Yet the reasoning provided by Buterin for the termination decision embodies precisely such power relationships. The same document also states that the foundation acts "without caprice or coercion."
Reading the Mission Statement alongside the complaint side by side is overwhelmingly ironic.
Who is truly responsible?
I deeply respect Vitalik Buterin. He is thoughtful, analytical, and kind. But from the beginning, his ability to evaluate ideas has been stronger than his ability to evaluate people.
In my view, he placed his trust in the wrong person at the wrong time. His words carried more weight with him than those of researchers, core developers, or even Wang Xiaowei, who serves as both a board member and co-CEO. Wang Xiaowei had clearly stated that this pointless conflict endangers the entire foundation’s future.
Buterin also participated in this process. He defended the retention of the license, defended the aesthetic style when Wang Xiaowei raised objections to it, and stated that the sudden implementation of the signing requirement was intentional. Afterwards, when explaining the termination decision, he focused on the types of behavior the Ethereum Foundation should encourage.
After others read the complaint, they will naturally form their own judgments. Regardless, what the foundation has done is clear. Seventy-nine employees requested the removal of one sentence. About half of the protocol group refused to make commitments under pressure and politely expressed their position. The board rejected the earlier request but accepted the stance expressed by the group of employees in the letter, then proceeded to terminate the two individuals who drafted the letter.
Whether these actions stem from an individual’s temperament or a shared belief among many, it is this institution that takes them. It operates under the name Ethereum and has Vitalik’s endorsement.
How to correct the deviation
I wrote this article because the foundation once told us how we would respond if we made a mistake on an important issue. The answer lies in this passage from our Mission Statement: “When we make mistakes, especially significant ones, we also acknowledge them humbly and appropriately, and clearly and honestly explain why our perspective has changed and what it is now.”
If the Ethereum Foundation wants to rebuild its credibility before those who actively build the protocol every day, it should adhere to the principles of its Mission Statement, take responsibility for its mistakes, and take concrete action.
The first step is for the board to issue a statement explicitly acknowledging three things: that issuing the ultimatum was wrong, that treating the collective objection raised respectfully by employees as a threat was wrong, and that firing two employees on April 6 was wrong. On March 27, Auher himself had already acknowledged part of this.
Next, the foundation must change its internal culture that suppresses open discussion and diverse opinions. As the entity entrusted with safeguarding Ethereum and upholding its own credibility, it dismissed a cancer patient without providing any justification. No matter the cost of properly addressing this matter, the foundation’s credibility is more important than any price.
Remove that license from the Mission Statement and show the respect that employees and the community deserve from the start. That version is permanently on-chain, but the new version can also be added to the chain so everyone can see that the foundation’s leadership values principles over demanding blind obedience from protocol builders.
The signatories of this letter genuinely believe in Ethereum’s values and are willing to stand up to defend them. The foundation once had employees who had the courage to politely say “no” to those in power, while still doing their jobs with integrity. Many of them have since left—a loss for the foundation. Those who remain are watching to see what happens next, and so are everyone building on Ethereum.
The board owes the remaining employees a mission statement that honors the commitment it once made. It should “humbly and appropriately provide a candid and clear explanation,” acknowledging that the ultimatum and the April 6 layoff decision were wrong, and taking responsibility for the consequences. Only then can the foundation once again become a place where people can voice dissent without harming others—and still keep their jobs.
Auher agreed to retain the following pledge in the officially released Mission Statement: “Should the foundation fail to fulfill its solemn commitment to Ethereum, may the foundation fall on its sword.” He had previously told foundation staff that anyone unable to uphold the Mission Statement should “make the only honorable decision: leave the Ethereum Foundation.” Now, by his own standard, it is his turn to make that honorable decision.
