Ethereum Foundation Lawsuit: Vitalik Sued Over a Firing
The Ethereum Foundation lawsuit landed on November 9. A former Protocol Support lead says the Foundation fired her for opposing a licence that called for ritual suicide. The Block, Protos and BeInCrypto all report it. These are allegations in a complaint, not findings. For bitcoin miners the short answer: no direct effect on hashprice.
What the Ethereum Foundation lawsuit alleges
Former Protocol Support lead Kayleen Fulton sued in federal court in Colorado. The defendants are the Ethereum Foundation, its Singapore affiliate, executive Bastian Aue and Vitalik Buterin. She alleges disability discrimination, retaliation and medical leave violations.
The dispute centres on a licence the reports call the “Source Seppuku License.” It called on those bound by it to take their own life with a sword if they broke its terms. Fulton says she organised a letter against it. Besides that, she says 79 employees voted to remove that section, and Buterin promised “significant changes.” Still, the published version kept the pledge.
The Ethereum Foundation lawsuit timeline
Fulton says she was fired on April 6. That was 13 days after she disclosed an ovarian cancer diagnosis and 12 days after she organised the letter. The complaint also quotes a May 1 conversation with Buterin that she partly recorded. In it, he is said to warn that “if you reward making a stink with outcomes,” staff could use that to influence the Foundation.
What the Foundation says
Foundation lawyers deny retaliation and point to arbitration in Singapore. Aue reportedly told staff the pledge was not meant literally. Earlier, the Foundation said it used the wording in a cultural context. Protos says the Foundation did not comment right away. One outlet names a different plaintiff. However, the other reports agree on Fulton, so we treat that as an error.
What it means for bitcoin miners
Blunt version: nothing direct, so there is no reason to act. Ethereum is proof of stake, so no ETH ASIC hashrate is involved. Your S19 earns bitcoin. Therefore the only risk is sentiment and headlines around a big crypto institution, and bitcoin price drives the maths below. We covered a different Ethereum story this weekend: Vitalik on ETH as a store of value.
Miner math: bitcoin hashprice today
Here is the live maths on November 10. Bitcoin is $75,083 and the network is 959 EH/s, so hashprice is about $35.56 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.52 | -$2.86 | -$5.98 | 4.3c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.92 | -$0.99 | -$3.53 | 6.4c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.40 | -$0.77 | -$3.65 | 6.9c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $4.11 | $1.58 | -$1.79 | 9.9c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If the headline drags crypto, bitcoin down 3%: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro falls from 6.4 to 6.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$0.99 to -$1.11.
That is a “what if”, not a forecast. Also, nothing in a lawsuit changes your power bill. See our mining economics guides for the levers that do.
So if a machine no longer pays, sell us your used miners. Buyers can browse all miners.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.
How this story was made: drafted with the help of AI tools from public sources, then edited by Nick Squires. See our editorial policy. Spot an error? Email ns@ingmining.com.