Core Foundation has won a court injunction halting Maple Finance’s planned launch of syrupBTC, a rival liquid staked Bitcoin (lstBTC) product. This follows allegations that Maple misused confidential information and violated an exclusivity agreement.
The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands’ decision marks a pivotal moment in the decentralized finance space. It demonstrates the sector’s increasing reliance on traditional legal frameworks to resolve intellectual property and commercial disputes.
Core Foundation Accuses Maple of Breaching Confidentiality and Exclusivity
The dispute centers on a 2025 partnership between Core Foundation and Maple Finance to jointly develop lstBTC. This tokenized product enables investors to earn yield on their Bitcoin holdings.
According to court filings and public statements by Core Foundation, Maple began developing syrupBTC. This innovation was a directly competing liquid staking product, allegedly using confidential project knowledge and resources gained during the lstBTC collaboration. The foundation claims this breached a 24-month exclusivity clause that prohibited either party from launching similar products independently.
The injunction prohibits Maple from launching or promoting syrupBTC, as well as from using any of Core Foundation’s proprietary data or dealing in CORE tokens without written consent while arbitration is underway.
The court determined that monetary damages alone would not be sufficient given the commercial head start Maple stood to gain and the risk of further unauthorized use of confidential assets.
Complexity of DeFi Collaborations
The legal standoff exposes the rising risk and complexity facing DeFi collaborations as protocols bring legal agreements and trade secrets into competitive blockchain markets. The court’s decision sends a signal to industry players about the importance of adhering to exclusivity covenants and respecting intellectual property even in permissionless environments.
For proponents of decentralized protocols, the case underscores that on-chain innovation is not immune to off-chain legal recourse. This reality is further highlighted by Core Foundation’s willingness to pursue litigation through international courts to protect its ecosystem.
The outcome marks a critical test for partnership governance in DeFi and further illustrates the growing importance of foundational court injunctions for safeguarding competitive positioning and investor trust across complex crypto markets.
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