Former Ethereum Foundation lead sues foundation and Vitalik Buterin over alleged wrongful termination

The Ethereum Foundation has operated since 2014 as the nonprofit steward funding core protocol development, with Vitalik Buterin as its best-known figurehead rather than a day-to-day manager. In 2026 the Foundation rolled out an internal 'Mandate' for staff that reportedly included a so-called Source Seppuku License provision, a loyalty-style pledge that drew internal pushback. Kayleen Fulton, who ran Protocol Support and helped facilitate Ethereum's All Core Developers calls, was among those objecting before her termination.

For Foundation staff and contractors, the case puts HR practices under a federal microscope: Fulton's complaint names two HR firms alongside Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited and Stiftung Ethereum, meaning any discovery order could expose internal communications across the Foundation's fragmented corporate structure. Core developers who rely on Protocol Support and the ACD calls lose a known coordinator mid-dispute. Buterin, rarely a named defendant in litigation, now faces depositions and a recorded conversation entered into the record.

A nonprofit built to decentralize protocol stewardship is being tested on the most centralized of grounds: an employment dispute governed by one executive's recorded words and a single HR chain of command. Fulton's claim that she was dismissed 13 days after disclosing cancer, tied to a staff revolt over a pledge, forces a reckoning between the Foundation's public image as a technical steward and its conduct as an employer answerable to US disability and retaliation law.

The filing, lodged November 4 in federal court in Colorado, now moves to an answer from the Foundation, Buterin, Bastian Aue and the other named entities, who must respond to the discrimination and retaliation claims and to the recorded-conversation evidence. Whether the suit proceeds to discovery, settles, or is dismissed will determine if the Mandate's suicide-pledge provision and the Foundation's internal decision-making become public record.

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