Yoichi Hirai resigned as an editor of the Ethereum citing concerns that a contentious proposal may be in violation of criminal law.

Named EIP 867, the proposal defines a method to facilitate the return of lost funds to the platform.

Speaking on GitHub, the developer wrote:

"Some EIP publishers seem nonchalant about the legal consequences of this project, but I warned them, and I have no ability to do anything other than warn them … I resign from the EIP Editor position. "

In writing his comments yesterday, Hirai said that the EIP may be in violation of a Japanese law called the "unauthorized creation of electromagnetic discs," stating "I doubt that, if the proposal is followed in practice, the process could constitute a crime. "

The law in question deals with cases of computer fraud, particularly the illegal creation of data "with the intention of causing maladministration of others' affairs," says a legal document.

Last week, Hirai blocked the proposal because of his failure to align with the "ethereal philosophy," a requirement based on the process of accepting the code, as detailed in EIP- 1. The developer has since retracted these statements by writing: "I was able to ignore my interpretation of the" ethereal philosophy "but I can not ignore the penal code."

As previously reported by CoinDesk, the proposal is led by developer Dan Philfer of Musiconomi, an ICO issuer who saw 16,475 ethers lost in the parity fund freeze last year.

Philfer's proposal has sparked controversy among developers, with some encouraging the public to get involved in the debate. It is also said that the proposal has accelerated efforts to improve the platform process to accept code changes.

Prior to his resignation, Hirai was one of six ethereum developers having the right to accept software changes on the platform.

According to data on GitHub, Hirai has been prolific in this role, with 5,219 contributions over the last year – a figure that exceeds the sum of all other publisher contributions combined.

Image of a broken pencil via Shutterstock

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