The nonprofit alleges Maple is misusing its confidential information and product to develop a rival offering behind its back.
A Cayman Island court has sided against the company behind the $4.6 billion DeFi lender, granting an injunction that blocks it from launching a new Bitcoin yield product.
The reason for the adverse legal action?
The Core Foundation, which partnered with Maple, alleges the lender is misusing its confidential information and product to develop a rival offering behind its back.
The two organisations partnered to develop a Bitcoin yield product, lstBTC, in early 2025. Now the Core Foundation alleges that Maple has taken that joint work to build a competing product of its own, despite the pair signing a 24-month exclusivity agreement.
“Core Foundation made significant financial and resource-intensive investments in the technical development, marketing, promotion, and subsidies of the product,” the foundation said on Wednesday.
In response, Maple Finance denied any wrongdoing and said it will pursue all available remedies to ensure Core Foundation is held responsible for its actions.
Maple Finance is an asset management and institutional lending platform, primarily on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. It has staged a roaring comeback over the past year after almost succumbing to the fallout from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022.
Core is a blockchain that enables users to use Bitcoin in DeFi. The Core Foundation is a nonprofit organisation that stewards the network.
Bitcoin DeFi products that let holders of the top crypto earn yield are a lucrative business.
Babylon, the largest such protocol, holds over $5.2 billion in Bitcoin, while competitors Lombard and Threshold Network hold hundreds of millions of dollars, per DefiLlama data.
In April, Maple Finance CEO Sidney Powell told DL News that the joint Bitcoin yield product with Core was among the protocol’s fastest-growing products, attributing this to the influx of new institutional investors buying Bitcoin and seeking a way to earn yield on it.
That success isn’t lost on the Core Foundation.
“At the time we launched the partnership, Maple Finance entities managed under $500 million in assets,” the foundation said on X. “The initial revenue and success of the Bitcoin Yield offering from April 2025 onward helped to kick-start explosive growth for Maple.”
At the same time, DeFi deposits to the Core blockchain have plummeted from around $1 billion in January to just $66 million today — a 94% decrease.
To add to Maple’s woes, the Core Foundation also alleges that the lender is unable to return the Bitcoin backing the pair’s fledgling product to investors.
“It is unclear why Maple maintains that they are unable to return the Bitcoin to their lenders at this time, or if they have the right to impair them,” the foundation said. “This is another example of concerning behaviour and business practices by Maple.”
In response, Maple said the situation does not impact its broader business operations.
“The dispute is strictly limited to the pilot programme conducted in partnership with Core Foundation for BTC Yield,” the firm said.
With neither side backing down, the situation looks set to snowball into a drawn-out legal battle between the two organisations.
“Core Foundation will take this legal action as far as necessary to protect the community,” the foundation said.
