Kayleen Fulton filed a lawsuit against the Ethereum Foundation and Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, alleging disability discrimination, retaliation and interference with family and medical leave rights after she refused to sign a mandate that included a symbolic suicide pledge.

A former Ethereum Foundation employee sued the nonprofit and Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, alleging disability discrimination, retaliation and unfair employment practices after she refused to sign a 1,000-year mandate that included a pledge to take one's own life with a sword.

The mandate

The Ethereum Foundation distributed "The Ethereum Foundation Mandate," a 38-page vision for the next 1,000 years, to its 250 employees in the first quarter of 2026. Page 11 asked anyone working on Ethereum Federation software to keep source code and related documents free and public. The page, titled "Source Seppuku License," said a signatory would "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." An illustration of a cartoon cat repeated the message.

The draft went out in late February. About 80 of the organization's 250 employees voted to remove the pledge. The final version, sent in March, kept the text and illustration as artwork rather than as part of the main mandate. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said the artwork was "not meant to be taken literally." The foundation described the pledge as "part of the artwork of the mandate."

Employee response and firings

Employees faced two choices at the end of the document: commit to the mandate or request a settlement payment and leave the foundation "without delay." In March, Kayleen Fulton led a response letter that endorsed the document's direction but declined to check either box or resign. Fifty-three employees signed the letter.

The foundation fired Fulton and a colleague who helped organize the letter. Buterin said leaders should not "reward making a stink with outcomes." By September, eight senior employees had left the foundation. Most of the 53 signers resigned or were terminated.

Legal claims

Fulton, a Boulder, Colorado, resident who earned $195,000 a year as a lead on the Protocol Support team, seeks unspecified damages. She disclosed an ovarian cancer diagnosis to the company on March 24, 2026, about two weeks before her firing. The lawsuit claims interference with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act in addition to disability discrimination and retaliation.

The case, FULTON v. ETHEREUM ASIA PACIFIC LIMITED et al., tests how far an employer can go in demanding symbolic commitments from staff and how it responds when employees object as a group.

Source:Ethereum Foundation sued after firing employee over mandatory 'Source Seppuku' suicide pact — non-profit crypto firm demanded employees pledge to take their own lives with a sword to protect open-source code, founder Vitalik Buterin claims bizarre 1,000-year mandate was just artwork, by Mark Tyson, Tom's Hardware, Nov 9, 2026

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