Core Foundation secures injunction blocking Maple Finance's rival bitcoin yield product

Core Foundation announced Wednesday that the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has granted its injunction against crypto lending platform Maple Finance over alleged breaches of their commercial agreement.

This injunction blocks Maple from launching a competing bitcoin yield product and restricts its dealings involving Core's native token, pending arbitration.

According to Core's Wednesday post on X, the foundation and Maple entered a partnership in early 2025 to develop lstBTC, a product designed to allow investors to earn yield on their bitcoin while keeping them in custody. Core and Maple announced the partnership in February at an event in Hong Kong.

"Core Foundation made significant financial and resource-intensive investments in the technical development, marketing, promotion, and subsidies of the product," Core said in the post, adding that the bitcoin yield product's success from its launch in April led to "explosive growth" for Maple.

Core alleged that in mid-2025, Maple began misusing the foundation's confidential information and work product to develop a rival offering, syrupBTC, while still accepting Core's capital and resources. This conduct violated the 24-month exclusivity clause, Core said.

In response, Maple Finance said Core Foundation's actions go against the interests of lenders, and said its broader business operations remain functional as usual.

"Maple denies any allegations of wrongdoing on its part and will be pursuing all available remedies aggressively to ensure Core Foundation is held responsible for the consequences of their actions," Maple wrote in an X post.

Exclusivity clause

Honorable Justice Jalil Asif KC of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands found there is a "serious issue to be tried" in Maple's alleged misuse of classified information and breach of the exclusivity clause, according to a court document.

"The Court found damages would not be an adequate remedy because of (i) the risk of Maple dealing in or shedding CORE tokens and (ii) the head-start Maple would gain by launching a competing product," Core said.

Core Foundation also accused Maple of creating lender risk by declaring impairments on millions of dollars worth of deposited bitcoin after Core halted certain price-protection payments following the alleged breaches.

"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," Core Foundation said. "This is another example of concerning behavior and business practices by Maple."