Journalist
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Key Takeaways
What caused the feud?
Core believes Maple breached a 24-month exclusivity agreement by unveiling a rival returns product.
How are lenders affected?
The yield product, lstBTC, was initially funded by $150 million of BTC from lenders, but it was not clear whether they would be repaid.
Institutional-focused DeFi lending company Maple Finance made headlines today for allegedly breaching a contract and stealing its partner, Core Foundation’s Bitcoin [BTC] deliver product.
On
The company added,
“Maple denies any allegations of wrongdoing on its part and will aggressively pursue all available legal remedies to ensure that Core Foundation is held accountable for the consequences of their actions.”
Source:
Core Foundation Claims
Core Foundation has been a partner in the Maple Finance ecosystem and has developed a BTC yield product, LstBTC.
The ERC-20 token allows holders to maintain liquidity across various DeFi platforms while earning returns. The product was co-developed in early 2025 and officially rolled out in April.
According to the Core team, they had a 24-month exclusivity agreement with Maple. However, Maple Finance has reportedly prepared a similar product, syrupBTC, a move that Core Foundation claimed breached the agreement and misused their confidential data.
Notably, the Core Foundation stated that it has successfully created a restraining order against Maple Finance for the alleged infringement.
The team further criticized the DeFi lending protocol for failing to repay lenders the initial $150 million BTC. add That,
“It is unclear why Maple maintains that they cannot return the Bitcoin to their lenders at this time. This is yet another example of concerning behavior and business practices by Maple.”
Bitcoin DeFi, or BTCFi, has picked up traction lately mainly dominated by Babylon [BABY] and Lombard.
However, other Bitcoin Layer 2 players such as Core have also emerged. At the time of writing, Babylon has a market share of 66%.
Source: Bitcoin Yield
However, interest rates have fallen in line with the broader market decline, from 3.19% to 3.0% in the past week.
That said, SYRUP, Maple Finance’s native token, fell 3% to $0.35 after the update. The Core ecosystem also experienced a 2% drop in TVL (total value locked) to $50 million over the past 24 hours.
It remains to be seen how the matter will be resolved and whether the original BTC backers will be made whole again.