Step Finance, the Solana-based DeFi portfolio tracker, announced it is winding down operations immediately after a late‑January exploit that drained 261,854 SOL—about $27 million at the time.
In a post on X on Monday, the team said it had “explored every possible path forward, including financing and acquisition opportunities,” but was unable to secure a viable outcome. The project is now focusing on a buyback plan for holders of its native token, STEP, based on a snapshot of holdings and token value taken before the incident.
The hack devastated STEP’s market value: the token plunged nearly 96% after the breach and fell an additional 36% in the 24 hours following the closure announcement.
Founded in 2021, Step Finance provided a dashboard to aggregate yield farms, liquidity provider (LP) tokens and other DeFi positions across the Solana ecosystem. The shutdown will also affect affiliated projects SolanaFloor—a Solana-focused media outlet—and tokenization platform Remora Markets, both of which will close alongside Step.
The collapse highlights the persistent security and operational risks within decentralized finance, particularly on chains experiencing rapid growth and complex tooling. Step’s winding down leaves its users and token holders awaiting details of the proposed buyback and any potential recovery of lost funds.
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