A U.S. court ruled that the FBI is not responsible for erasing a hard drive that may contain 3,400 Bitcoins.

On November 6, a U.S. appeals court recently ruled that the FBI is not required to be responsible for erasing a hard drive that may contain over 3,400 Bitcoins, as the convicted owner of the hard drive never informed the government of his possession of the tokens. The main character, Pleem, had previously served time for identity theft and applied to the court for the return of the hard drive containing Bitcoins after being released in July 2022, but the FBI had erased it according to their standard procedures. Pleem claimed this action was illegal and appealed. The judge ultimately stated that Pleem waited too long to file a complaint, and his statements were inconsistent, raising doubts about whether he truly held Bitcoins. Before reaching a plea agreement and serving time in November 2019, Pleem claimed to own “about 3,500 Bitcoins.” After being incarcerated, Pleem changed his story, and in February 2020, his financial disclosure report submitted to the government showed that he only owned a few thousand dollars worth of Bitcoins. Glassnode data indicates that approximately 1.46 million BTC (nearly 7% of the total supply) may have been permanently lost, while Chainalysis reported in 2018 that permanently lost Bitcoins could be as high as 3.7 million, exceeding 17.5% of the total supply.