A U.S. court ruled that the FBI is not responsible for the destruction of a hard drive containing 3,400 bitcoins, with approximately 3.7 million bitcoins potentially permanently lost.

On November 6, news reported by Cointelegraph states that a U.S. court ruled the FBI is not liable for the destruction of a hard drive containing 3,400 bitcoins. Previously, the hard drive owner had repeatedly denied owning a large number of bitcoins, leading the government to abandon further searches for clues to the bitcoins, and, following notification, to routinely clear the equipment that could be processed. This incident has increased the total amount of irrecoverable bitcoin losses, with current estimates suggesting that about 3.7 million bitcoins (representing 18% of the total supply) may be permanently lost.