A Boulder resident sued The Ethereum Foundation in federal court in Colorado, saying the nonprofit pushed employees to accept a mandate that included a vow to die by suicide and fired her after she organized resistance.

A Boulder resident sued The Ethereum Foundation in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on Wednesday, saying the nonprofit required employees to accept a 1,000-year vision document that included a suicide pledge and fired her after she led resistance to it.

Kayleen Fulton, a former foundation employee who lives in Boulder, filed the lawsuit after the Swiss nonprofit distributed “The Ethereum Foundation Mandate” to staff in March. The foundation supports Ethereum, a cryptocurrency platform and the second-largest blockchain network in the world, valued at about $300 billion, according to the lawsuit.

The mandate and the pledge

Managers sent the 38-page document to all employees on a Friday in March and told them to commit to its principles by Monday or quit, the lawsuit said. The document laid out leadership’s vision for the foundation for the next 1,000 years and used illustrated scenes of glowing lights, anime-style characters, flowers, rainbows and diamonds.

On page 11, between a winking anime woman and three yellow cats, the document included a “Source Seppuku License.” The illustration said authors, maintainers, editors and distributors of “this software” would pledge to keep the software free and publicly accessible and to “take his or her own life with a sword upon failure to uphold any of the pledges in this license.”

Employees received a form with two choices, according to a copy included in court filings. One option asked employees to commit to the mandate’s direction, translate it into strategies for their work and focus on mission-critical tasks “from today and until my last day at the EF.” The other asked employees who could not commit to request extra months of compensation and leave.

Employee resistance

Fulton said resistance began in late February, when the foundation’s board shared a draft with staff. Employees asked in workplace forums whether they were pledging to die by suicide and whether the pledge tested loyalty to Ethereum’s principles. One employee mentioned a colleague’s recent death by suicide. Another wrote about a new hire joining the next day and seeing a proposal to remove a clause that asked employees to make “the ultimate sacrifice by falling on a sword.”

Nearly 80 of the foundation’s 250 employees voted to remove the suicide pledge after the draft circulated, the lawsuit said. Foundation leadership kept the pledge in the final version and placed it in an illustration instead of the main text.

The lawsuit also said the mandate’s visual style echoed imagery from a controversial online figure known for promoting white nationalist ideology and pro-anorexia content. When a board member objected, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said “the controversialness (sic) of those aesthetics is itself part of the point,” according to the complaint.

Management response and firings

Bastian Aue, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, told employees the pledge was “part of the artwork of the mandate” and “a cultural reference,” the lawsuit said. After employees pushed back, managers updated the commitment form to say it had “nothing to do with literal seppuku.”

In the days after the mandate went out, Fulton and a colleague organized a letter to the board. Fifty-three employees endorsed the mandate’s general direction but declined to return the commitment form or resign, the lawsuit said. Aue allowed those employees to keep their jobs but fired Fulton and the colleague who helped organize the letter.

Buterin later told Fulton, who had received a cancer diagnosis, that the firing concerned company dynamics. “If you reward making a stink with outcomes, then everyone will know that essentially making that kind of show both internally and externally is the way to cause outcomes inside of the EF,” he said, according to the lawsuit, which cited a recorded conversation.

Departures and legal claims

The mandate triggered departures, Fulton alleged. The board member who objected to the visual style began a sabbatical the day Fulton lost her job and resigned in June. By September, eight senior employees had left, and most of the 53 letter-signers had resigned or been terminated, according to the lawsuit.

Fulton, who earned $195,000 at the foundation, accused the organization of disability discrimination, retaliation, interference with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act, unfair employment practices and related claims. The lawsuit said the foundation uses employer-of-record service companies to hire and pay its U.S. staff.

James Bartolomei, one of Fulton’s attorneys, declined to comment and said the lawsuit spoke for itself. The foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source:Crypto foundation demanded employees endorse suicide pledge, then fired leaders who objected, Colorado lawsuit alleges, by Shelly Bradbury, The Denver Post, Nov 6, 2026

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