A former Ethereum Foundation employee, Kayleen Fulton, has sued the foundation, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and four others in a US federal court. She alleges she was fired 13 days after disclosing a cancer diagnosis.
What the plaintiff alleges
Fulton led the foundation's protocol support team and is known in the Ethereum community as Nixo. She filed the complaint on November 4 in the US District Court for the District of Colorado. According to the filing, Bastian Aue, then a co-executive director of the foundation, fired her on April 6. Thirteen days passed between her diagnosis disclosure and the dismissal.
Fulton alleges disability discrimination, retaliation and interference with her medical leave rights. She is seeking lost pay and damages. Buterin appears in the suit as a board member: the complaint alleges he helped adopt and enforce the directive that triggered the dispute.
A letter with 53 signatures
The dispute centers on the foundation's mandate, published in March. It lays out the organization's role in Ethereum's development: censorship resistance, open-source code, privacy and security, with protocol upgrades, research and developer tools named as the focus.
Fulton and colleague Trent Van Epps organized an open letter signed by 53 people. The authors backed the goals of the mandate but disagreed with mandatory affirmation. According to Fulton, a few days later Aue fired her and Van Epps 30 minutes apart.
The complaint also says some employees objected to a reference to ritual suicide in the text of the mandate. Aue, as quoted in the document, told staff the wording was figurative.
How the foundation's side responded
The complaint quotes a letter dated May 14 from a lawyer for the foundation's Singapore affiliate, Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited. The lawyer denied that Fulton had been subjected to unlawful conduct or retaliation and said her separation agreement was binding.
Cointelegraph asked the foundation, Fulton and Van Epps for comment. No responses had arrived by publication. Reports give no hearing dates, so no court has yet assessed any of the plaintiff's claims.
Why the market noticed the case
The Ethereum Foundation does not run the network, but it funds protocol development and has real influence on its direction. Every public dispute inside it makes headlines, since Buterin remains the most recognizable face of the project. This week he drew attention even without a lawsuit, when he proposed promoting Ethereum as a store of value.
On the day of publication, the market did not single this news out from the general backdrop. Ether was down about 4% near $2,030, while Bitcoin held around $73,200. Whether the case affects the foundation's reputation depends on the defendants' response and the court's rulings.
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