Vitalik faces lawsuit; EF organization documents contain joking terms such as 'seppuku'; a cancer-stricken employee who led a boycott was fired and subsequently sued.

November 10 - The Ethereum Foundation distributed an organizational mission and directional document "EF Mandate" to employees in February this year, with page 11 containing the "Source Seppuku License." This section is presented in illustrated form (anime style, winking character, yellow cat, etc.), with the text essentially stating that if the author/maintainer/editor/distributor fails to uphold the open-source commitment or modifies the license, they must "take his or her own life with a sword."

The content faced strong opposition from some employees, with approximately 79 people voting to demand removal of the relevant content. Management explicitly stated it was not meant literally and updated the commitment form to clarify it was "unrelated to literal seppuku." However, the version ultimately published on March 13 still retained the relevant text, which was written into the Ethereum blockchain.

Employee Fulton and colleagues organized a joint letter with 53 Protocol cluster members, expressing support for the direction but not accepting mandatory commitment conditions. Subsequently, Fulton notified management in writing on March 24 that she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and was fired approximately 13 days later (another joint letter organizer, Trent Van Epps, was also dismissed the same day). As a result, Fulton filed a lawsuit in Colorado, accusing the Ethereum Foundation, Vitalik, and other executives of retaliatory termination, disability discrimination, and interference with medical leave.