The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is being sued after firing an employee shortly after she objected to an alleged mandated suicide pledge. The dismissal also came within weeks of her revealing her cancer diagnosis.

EF is a non-profit that supports the cryptocurrency platform Ethereum. Filed to the District Court of Colorado on Nov. 4, the complaint claims EF fired Protocol Support team lead Kayleen Fulton (also known as Nixo) after she coordinated a collective letter opposing a suicide pledge all employees had been directed to affirm. The "Source Seppuku License" had been included in a document entitled "The Ethereum Foundation Mandate," which was distributed to all employees on Feb. 25:

"By inclusion of this license, the author, maintainer, editor or (re)distributor (the 'actor') of this software SHALL uphold the following pledges:

To always make freely available and publicly accessible a full and accurate copy of the source code and associated documents of this software, including all modifications hereto by the Actor.

To 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.

May we ritualistically fall on our own swords if we fail to uphold our solemn promise to Ethereum and the Infinite Garden."

Multiple EF employees allegedly objected to the license, one noting that a colleague had just killed themselves in 2025. These criticisms prompted EF's board to revise the mandate. However, rather than remove the Seppuku License, the finalised 38-page mandate issued on March 13 reportedly reformatted it into a Comic Sans-style font, made it less prominent, and illustrated it with cartoon cats and an anime girl pointing a gun at the reader.

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