BlockBeats news, on March 17, according to CoinDesk, the UK High Court ruled last week that a theft case involving 2,323 bitcoins (currently worth approximately $172 million) may proceed to trial, testing how UK property law applies to digital assets.
UK resident Ping Fai Yuen alleges in court documents that his separated wife, Fun Yung Li, secretly obtained his hardware wallet’s recovery phrase via home surveillance cameras in August 2023 and transferred the bitcoins without authorization. At the time of the theft, the bitcoins were valued at approximately $60 million; at current prices, their value has risen to about $172 million. The bitcoins were stored in a Trezor cold wallet protected by a PIN code, but anyone in possession of the 24-word recovery phrase can reconstruct the wallet and move the funds. After the transfer, the bitcoins underwent multiple transactions and are now dispersed across 71 non-exchange blockchain addresses, with no further movement since December 21, 2023.
Yuen stated that after his daughter warned him that his wife was attempting to steal Bitcoin, he installed recording devices in his home. After discovering the transfer, he confronted his wife, assaulted her, and in 2024 pleaded guilty to assault and two counts of common assault. Police seized multiple hardware wallets and seed phrases during a search of his wife’s residence, but took no further action pending new evidence.
Legally, the wife sought to dismiss the case, arguing that the husband’s primary claim constituted “conversion,” a tort traditionally recognized under English law only for tangible property, not digital assets such as Bitcoin. The judge acknowledged this viewpoint but ruled that the case could proceed under alternative legal claims, and if the allegations are proven, the relevant Bitcoin may still be recovered.