This article was compiled and organized by BlockWeeks
A former employee of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) filed a lawsuit last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, naming the Ethereum Foundation and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin as defendants. The plaintiff, Kayleen Fulton, previously led the foundation's protocol support team and was responsible for chairing All Core Developers—the public process for advancing protocol upgrades. The workplace she describes in the complaint is one where an "inside joke" originating from crypto's Milady subculture ultimately became a condition of employment; and management had multiple opportunities to change this clause—which appeared to require suicide—to optional, or even to delete it outright, yet never did so.
An institutional mission statement hiding "seppuku" in an appendix
According to the complaint, the foundation published an institutional mandate on February 25, accompanied by a "Source Seppuku License"—a Remilia-style piece of internet theatricality that wrote "those who violate the terms must atone by seppuku" into the penalty clause.
Within less than a week, 79 employees expressed support for deleting the wording, with some directly mentioning a colleague's suicide a year earlier, showing that this was far more than a "matter of taste." Management's response was to keep the clause and release an illustrated version featuring anime imagery and a cartoon cat—which is probably the choice you make when you conclude that "the problem is that the clause isn't playful enough."
The "accept or leave" ultimatum and the joint letter signed by 53 people
On March 20, employees were told they had to confirm acceptance of this mission statement or else leave; at the same time, the foundation reassured them that the "seppuku" wording was merely a cultural reference and should not be taken literally.
Five days later, on March 25, 53 employees signed a joint letter: they affirmed that they agreed with Ethereum's principles, but refused to affirm them under conditions where they were forced to confirm those principles—which is about the most polite, most institutionally internalized form that dissent can take.
On April 6, the two organizers of that joint letter, Fulton and Trent Van Epps, were fired. The complaint alleges that the foundation carried out retaliatory termination, disability discrimination, and violations of medical leave-related regulations; the complaint also states that she had disclosed her cancer diagnosis shortly before being fired. All of the above remain allegations. But it is worth noting that the mission statement itself describes Ethereum as a force that "liberates people from power relationships in which 'dissent comes at a heavy cost.'"
The foundation's response
According to the complaint, the foundation's lawyers denied in May that Fulton "suffered unlawful conduct, economic coercion, retaliation, or was fired for violating public policy," but did not state the specific reason for firing her. Since the allegations became public, the Ethereum Foundation has made no public comment on them.
Most of the common criticism of the Ethereum Foundation is not worth much
I have never paid much attention to the criticism the Ethereum Foundation usually receives, most of which comes from people who wish they held more of the coin. Crypto Twitter accuses the EF of not doing enough, not promoting projects, and not pumping tokens. But in fact, Ethereum has the deepest DeFi ecosystem, and its total value locked (TVL) ranks first among all chains by a huge margin; meanwhile, those foundations that actually went out to "pick winners"—such as the Avalanche Foundation—were instead badly hurt when those narratives ultimately fizzled out.
The purpose of the Ethereum Foundation's existence is to safeguard a vision, not to maintain a price. It is a nonprofit foundation, not a company; it is a home for developers thinking about the coming decades, not for people in suits. That is also why its "weirdness" is itself a feature. When Vitalik speaks at conferences wearing a cape and a mask, I basically think there is no problem with it.
But this time is different: this is an HR-level loss of control
Nevertheless, the allegations in this lawsuit are disturbing. Imagine an ordinary company's HR department hearing that 79 employees—some of whom are still grieving a colleague's death—reported that a mandatory document was harmful: it could have deleted that clause that very afternoon, without even consulting a lawyer; and it would never have turned around and fired the people who made the request politely.
Being esoteric and mysterious is of course fine, especially when the work itself is both mysterious and important. But enforcing your "esotericism" by firing people, as the foundation is accused of doing, is exactly how you become Lumon—the fictional company in the TV series Severance, an institution that talks about care but in action treats employees as disposable consumables.
Crypto Twitter may want the Ethereum Foundation to start acting like a company, but it does not need to. If the claims in the lawsuit are ultimately substantiated, then what the foundation needs to do is act like the organization described in its own mission statement—an organization where "expressing disagreement will not cost you your job."
