The Core Foundation has partnered with Maple Finance, an institutional lending protocol, and custodian companies BitGo, Copper and Hex Trust to further expand the bitcoin staking space. Core's IstBTC token allows institutional participants to remain securely within a trusted custodian partner while receiving benefits from their bitcoin holdings without the risk or operational burden of smart contracts. Maple will issue a liquid staking token in the coming months, which will allow trading firms and asset managers to use staked bitcoins as collateral for borrowing in the DeFi space or counterparty.