Step Finance announced on Feb. 23 that it is immediately ceasing all operations, along with subsidiaries SolanaFloor and Remora Markets, following a treasury breach it could not financially recover from.
The company said it pursued financing and acquisition options over the preceding weeks but found no viable path forward.
The STEP token was trading at approximately $0.00058 at the time of the announcement - down 97.6% from its pre-hack levels, per CoinGecko.
What Happened
On Jan. 31, unknown attackers compromised devices belonging to members of Step Finance's executive team.
The breach gave attackers access to treasury and fee wallets, not the platform's smart contracts.
Blockchain security firm CertiK confirmed that 261,854 SOL - worth approximately $29 million at the time - was unstaked and transferred out during the incident. The team notified authorities and brought in cybersecurity professionals, but recovery efforts failed.
Crypto investor Mike Dudas said he was approached about bridge financing but requested a security post-mortem first and never received one.
Read also: Upbit Lists Solana Mobile's Seeker (SKR) As Token Surges 72% On Debut
What Comes Next for Holders
Step Finance said it is working on a STEP token buyback based on a pre-hack balance snapshot. No timeline or buyback price has been disclosed.
Remora Markets, acquired by Step via the December 2024 purchase of Moose Capital, had been building tokenized equity trading on Solana - including exposure to Nvidia and Tesla - before the hack ended those plans.
Remora confirmed all rTokens remain fully backed 1:1 and a USDC redemption process is in development.
SolanaFloor, one of Solana's most-read ecosystem media platforms, said it will preserve its archive but stop publishing new content.
Broader Context
Step Finance was one of Solana's earliest DeFi portfolio dashboards, often called the "front page of Solana" during the network's growth years.
Its collapse comes as Solana's total DeFi value locked has fallen 52% from its September 2025 peak to $6.3 billion, according to DefiLlama.
SOL itself trades near $77 - 74% below its January 2025 all-time high of $293. The breach required no smart contract exploit; compromised endpoint security on executive machines was sufficient to drain the treasury entirely.