$93 million misappropriated? A retrospective on the truth behind Stream Finance's collapse.

On November 4, 2025, the DeFi world experienced a "Black Tuesday".

Stream Finance, a yield aggregation protocol that once boasted a TVL of over $200 million and touted as "The SuperApp DeFi Deserves," suddenly announced that an "external fund manager" had caused a loss of approximately $93 million, and that all deposit and withdrawal functions would be suspended immediately.

Upon the announcement, its issued "stablecoin," xUSD, plummeted from $1 to $0.26, a 77% drop in 24 hours. Even more devastatingly, xUSD was widely used as collateral in mainstream lending protocols such as Morpho, Euler, Silo, and Gearbox—a single bombshell triggered a violent upheaval in the entire DeFi lending market.

According to DeFi research firm Yields And More (YAM), Stream's debt exposure is as high as $285 million.

• Elixir's deUSD token was shut down after 65% of its reserves (approximately 68 million USDC) were lent to Stream. The token's price plummeted from $1 to $0.015, nearly reaching zero.

• Compound suspends USDC/USDS/USDT market

• Euler freezes related funds pool

• Morpho experiences bad debts

Within a week, the DeFi market saw a net outflow of approximately $1 billion. Some have likened this to "the Terra moment of 2025," with Aave founder Stani Kulechov even warning on social media: "The next Terra Luna may be brewing."

Recently, I've been doing in-depth research on Curator, and because of the Stream Finance incident, Curator has also been thrust into the spotlight. So I researched the ins and outs of this matter to help everyone understand the whole picture.

Scapegoat: How did Curator get blamed for this?

After the incident, public opinion quickly turned against one person: Curator.

How did they manage to shift the blame? Looking back at Stream's official statement on November 4, the loss was caused by an "external fund manager".

This wording is too easy to evoke the image of a Curator in DeFi lending protocols—the "curator" role in protocols like Morpho and Euler, who is responsible for managing liquidity pools and setting risk parameters.

The chain reaction following Stream's collapse makes this narrative seem even more "concrete":

On November 6, Lista DAO urgently initiated a governance vote to forcibly liquidate the Vault managed by MEV Capital and Re7 Labs—borrowing rates had soared to 800%, and the borrowers had made no repayments whatsoever. Re7 Labs subsequently issued a statement acknowledging approximately $14.65 million in exposure in its xUSD segregated vault on Euler.

The Vaults of top Curator have all collapsed, leading to an emergency vote to force liquidation—isn't this Curator's problem?

Following the incident, BlockBeats published a widely circulated article titled "DeFi's Potential $8 Billion Risk Has Only Expired $100 Million," attributing the collapse to "external Curators using user funds for opaque off-chain transactions" and characterizing it as a "systemic crisis of the Curator model."

Meanwhile, another "coincidence" made things even more confusing—just one day before Stream collapsed (November 3), Balancer was hacked and lost approximately $128 million.

Thus, the mainstream narrative became: Curator misappropriated client funds to implement high-risk strategies, invested in Balancer, Balancer was hacked, the money was gone, and the Curator model was unreliable.

But here's a crucial question: Was Curator really the core cause behind Stream's collapse?

It wasn't until the lawsuit documents were made public on December 8th that we were able to get a glimpse of the whole story.

The truth comes to light: another story revealed by the lawsuit documents.

On December 8, Stream Trading Corp. (the original founding team of Stream) filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco Federal Court against Caleb McMeans (online name 0xlaw) and Ryan DeMattia.

This lawsuit reveals a completely different story.

Project sold: An "acquisition" without cash.

According to DL News' detailed report on the lawsuit documents:

In February 2024, Argentine crypto investor Diogenes Casares founded Stream Protocol. In April of the same year, the project completed a $1.5 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain, valuing the company at $20 million.

However, after only nine months of operation, in November 2024, the founding team decided to shut down the project due to "operational challenges".

Just then, trader Caleb McMeans appeared. He proposed acquiring Stream as a "complex profit strategy management expert".

In January 2025, both parties signed an agreement:

• McMeans has gained complete control of the protocol, including all on-chain transactions, off-chain business protocols, and user deposit management.

• In exchange, he was required to pay the original team a 35% cut of the fees and promise to "fully and transparently disclose the location of fund deployments."

Note: This was not a cash acquisition—McMeans did not pay to buy the protocol, but rather signed an agreement of "I'll operate it, you collect the fees." The original team retained their roles as service providers for the smart contracts, website, and token.

Out-of-control assets: 90 million was handed over to someone with "no formal relationship"

The problem arose after McMeans took over. According to the lawsuit documents, he handed over more than $90 million in protocol assets to a person named Ryan DeMattia for off-chain management.

Who is DeMattia? The description in the lawsuit documents is quite subtle: McMeans initially referred to him as an "employee" but later admitted that there was "no formal relationship" with DeMattia.

Is it absurd to entrust this person with over $90 million in off-chain assets when there is no formal relationship between them?

But the most outrageous things are yet to come.

The laptop was destroyed in the car accident.

In September 2025, the original founding team began demanding greater transparency from McMeans, wanting to know where the funds went. McMeans' response was "continuous delays and excuses."

When the team pressed DeMattia for answers, her response was even more remarkable—as stated in the original lawsuit documents:

"DeMattia offered a series of patently false excuses for why he could not provide any further information, even claiming at one point that his laptop had been destroyed in a car crash."

(DeMattia offered a series of obviously false excuses for not being able to provide more information, even claiming that his laptop was destroyed in the car accident.)

The creativity of this excuse is probably only comparable to "My dog ate my homework".

The lawsuit documents continue, stating that McMeans advised the original team to "stop asking questions and just trust DeMattia."

October 10: Personal account liquidation, misappropriated funds to cover the losses.

Then, October 10th arrived.

On that day, the price of ETH plummeted by 21%, setting a record for the largest single-day liquidation in crypto history, with approximately $20 billion in positions being liquidated. The lawsuit documents describe:

"But upon information and belief, on October 10, 2025, Mr. DeMattia faced a margin call on a personal loan for which he lacked sufficient funds to cover, had his position liquidated, and then used Stream Protocol assets to which he had access to cover his loss."

(Based on available information and reasonable inference, on October 10, 2025, Mr. DeMattia faced a margin call on a personal loan, but he did not have sufficient funds to cover it, and his position was liquidated. He then used his Stream Protocol assets to cover the losses.)

In layman's terms: DeMattia's own leveraged position was liquidated, and since he didn't have the money to cover it, he conveniently used Stream's money to fill the hole.

On November 2nd, DeMattia finally "confessed." According to DL News:

"On November 2, he admitted he had lost 'nearly all' of the Stream protocol assets under his control, which were worth about $93 million at the time."

(On November 2, he admitted that he had lost "almost all" of the Stream Protocol assets under his control, which were worth approximately $93 million at the time.)

The timeline doesn't match: Balancer is just a fig leaf.

Please note this date: November 2nd.

When was Balancer hacked? November 3rd.

If Stream's $93 million loss was due to the Balancer hack, then the loss should have occurred on November 3rd. However, DeMattia admitted on November 2nd that the losses were "completely wiped out"—the timeline doesn't match up.

More crucial evidence: the lawsuit documents state that McMeans deleted "all private Discord communications with DeMattia since October 10"—precisely the day DeMattia is believed to have begun misappropriating funds.

If the loss was indeed caused by an external event such as Balancer being hacked, why delete the chat history starting from October 10th?

The answer is obvious: the Balancer hack was likely just a "convenient coincidence" used to divert attention, confuse the timeline, and provide a fig leaf of "force majeure" to cover up internal misappropriation.

BlockEden's analysis report also confirms this: "No evidence of a smart contract hack or exploit has been found."

Essence: Personal misappropriation, and haphazard operation

So, is the systemic risk caused by the failure of Curator's model, or is it simply a case of a hastily organized team leading to the misappropriation of assets by individuals?

The court documents provide a clear answer: this was misappropriation of funds.

DeMattia was not a professional Curator; he was an off-chain trader privately recruited by McMeans with "no formal relationship" with the protocol. He gained actual control over more than $90 million, without escrow segregation, multisignature protection, or on-chain verifiability—when he personally suffered a margin call, he directly used users' money to cover his own losses.

Amplifier: How xUSD revolving loans blow up the hole even bigger.

This financial crisis, caused by the misappropriation of funds by an individual, resulted in a $285 million hole due to xUSD's revolving loan strategy.

If Stream were simply a custody protocol, DeMattia's misappropriation of 93 million would be a maximum loss of 93 million. However, because xUSD is designed as a "yield-enhancing stablecoin" that can be circulated, collateralized, and re-lent across various protocols, this 93 million hole acts like a virus, spreading throughout the entire DeFi ecosystem through the composability of DeFi.

Revolving loans are not the cause of the disaster, but they amplify its scale.

Yearn developer Schlag warned long before the collapse: "With the same 1.9 million USDC, they minted approximately 14.5 million x USD"—a 7.6x leverage. When the underlying asset ran into trouble, this leverage became an accelerator of destruction.

When the underlying assets (93 million held by Stream) disappeared, the entire revolving loan structure collapsed instantly, and the debt exposure swelled from 93 million to 285 million.

Conclusion: Retrospective Analysis, Reflection, and Future

Let's trace the entire chain of this financial crisis:

Starting point: Stream Finance "sold" its protocol to trader McMeans, who then entrusted $93 million in user assets to DeMattia, with whom he had "no formal relationship," for off-chain management.

Trigger: On October 10, ETH plummeted, DeMattia's personal position was liquidated, and he directly misappropriated Stream funds to cover the losses.

Amplifier: The xUSD revolving loan structure amplified the $93 million hole into a $285 million debt exposure, spreading throughout the entire DeFi lending market.

A fig leaf: The fact that Balancer was hacked for 128 million on November 3rd became the perfect excuse to divert attention—even though DeMattia had already admitted to losing everything on November 2nd.

Scapegoat: Public opinion points the finger at the Curator model, but ignores the real problem of personal misappropriation.

What is the true nature of this financial crisis?

Failure of Curator mode

In protocols like Morpho and Euler, Curator permissions have clear boundaries—they can set risk parameters, adjust collateral ratios, and decide which assets to accept, but they cannot directly transfer user funds. Assets deposited by users into the Vault are locked in smart contracts, and Curator has no right to remove them.

The problem with Curators, who have been thrust into the spotlight, lies in their "negligence": accepting problematic assets like xUSD as collateral without conducting thorough due diligence.

It's not the original sin of the revolving loan strategy

Recursive lending is merely a tool to amplify both returns and risks. Used well, it's efficient capital management; used poorly, it's suicidal leverage. Stream's revolving loans amplified the scale of the disaster, but were not the cause of it.

The real problem is: can one person control tens of millions of dollars in user assets without any constraints?

• No managed isolation

• No multisignature protection

• No on-chain verifiable fund flow

• No compliance audit

• There wasn't even a formal employment contract.

This is the most primitive form of betrayal of trust—giving money to someone, and then that person taking the money away.

This reflects the current state of the DeFi industry: rampant informal operations and a lack of regulation. A DeFi protocol can be "transferred" at will, user funds can be misappropriated at will, and there are no real institutional constraints throughout the entire process.

But crises often present opportunities.

The Stream closure is forcing the industry to mature. As regulatory frameworks and laws continue to improve and be implemented, more transparent, compliant, and professional agreements and service providers will be the real opportunities for the industry in the future.

References:

1. DL News: "Stream Finance founders sue business partner, allege $93m used to cover personal losses"https://www.dlnews.com/articles/defi/stream-finance-founders-sue-partner-over-alleged-93m-loss/

2. The Defiant: "Stream Files Lawsuit Against Operator '0xlaw' Over $93 Million Loss" https://thedefiant.io/news/defi/stream-finance-files-lawsuit-against-0xlaw-mcmeans

3. The Defiant: "How Stream Finance's Collapse Exposed DeFi's Looping Yield Bubble" https://thedefiant.io/news/defi/how-stream-finance-s-collapse-exposed-defi-s-looping-yield-bubble

4. Litigation case: Stream Trading Corp. v. McMeans, Case No. 3:25-cv-10524, US District Court for the Northern District of California, filed December 8, 2025

5. BlockEden: "Anatomy of a $285M DeFi Contagion: The Stream Finance xUSD Collapse"https://blockeden.xyz/blog/2025/11/08/m-defi-contagion/

6. Tiger Research: "Collapse of the Defi Jenga: The Stream Finance Breakdown"https://reports.tiger-research.com/p/collapse-of-the-defi-jenga-the-stream-eng

7. The Block: "Analysts map $285M in potential exposure across DeFi after Stream Finance's $93M loss" https://www.theblock.co/post/377491/analysts-map-285m-in-potential-exposure-across-defi-after-stream-finances-93m-loss

8. BlockBeats: "Of the potential $8 billion in DeFi problems, only $100 million has exploded so far."

9. Yields And More (YAM): Stream Finance Debt Exposure Analysis

10. Re7 Labs: Statement on Stream Finance Insolvency and xUSD Exposurehttps://x.com/Re7Labs/status/1985694621251387506