Fired Employee Sues the Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik Buterin

Brief

By Dextape Desk · November 9, 2026

Kayleen Fulton, who led the Protocol Support team at the Ethereum Foundation and helped run its All Core Developers calls, has filed a federal lawsuit in Colorado. She alleges the foundation dismissed her thirteen days after she informed leadership of an ovarian cancer diagnosis. The November 4 complaint names six defendants, including Stiftung Ethereum, the Swiss entity that runs the foundation, a Singapore affiliate, two HR and payroll firms, co-executive director Bastian Aue, and Vitalik Buterin, who is sued individually. The dispute centers on a staff directive whose draft contained a pledge referring to ritual suicide, which the complaint says stayed in the final version as a small image. Fulton says she was dismissed on April 6 without a stated reason, and she seeks back pay, front pay and damages. The Ethereum affiliate's counsel denied key allegations in a May letter.

Why it matters: The lawsuit puts the Ethereum Foundation's internal management and workplace practices under court scrutiny, a matter relevant to readers following the group that supports Ethereum's protocol development.

Mentioned: Ethereum

Summary by Dextape, based on reporting by Unchained. Machine-written from Unchained’s report and checked against it · How Dextape writes