A British investor thought he had lost roughly $2,000 in bitcoin back in 2012. He was wrong. CEL Solicitors recovered 61 BTC from the wreckage of Intersango, a long-dead exchange, and those coins are now worth about $4.5 million.
The law firm CEL Solicitors said it traced a wallet holding the 61 BTC tied to the former Intersango customer and proved ownership to return the coins. The recovery totals about $4.5 million at the price CoinDesk used in its headline. CryptoSlate, valuing each coin at roughly $78,824, puts the haul closer to $4.81 million. The gap comes down to spot price on the day each outlet ran the story.
The case reveals two things at once. First, the sheer volume of bitcoin still sitting dormant from the network’s early years. Second, a nascent legal trade springing up to recover it.
Intersango operated when bitcoin traded in the low double digits. By October 2012, the exchange planned to shutter its US-dollar market because trading had thinned out. It offered 625 BTC at $12.10 each, about $7,563 for the lot. Those same 625 coins are worth roughly $49.3 million today, according to CryptoSlate.
The exchange wound down through late 2012 as GBP and USD trading ended. Its website went dark by early 2014. Companies House records show Intersango Ltd ceased to exist on March 22, 2016.
CEL says it has traced more than 5,500 BTC it believes belong to former Intersango users in total. At roughly $78,824 per coin, that pool is worth about $433.5 million. The firm told CryptoSlate that useful evidence for a claim includes the email address tied to an account, correspondence with the exchange, and bank statements documenting transfers to it.
Pulling bank records from nearly 15 years earlier was a major hurdle in the 61-BTC case, according to the outlet’s reporting. The investor instructed CEL on January 20. The case settled on May 28. All 61 coins came back.
The recovery sits inside a wider legal fight. California court records describe a dispute over customer bitcoin connected to Intersango. A 2025 Court of Appeal opinion in Norman v. Strateman recounts allegations that Patrick Strateman closed the exchange, retained Intersango assets, and refused to return customer bitcoin. A settlement intended to protect and return those assets was sent back for judicial review of its fairness, the appellate ruling shows.
A separate 2025 filing describes another alleged customer balance of 15.463 BTC, about $1.22 million, which Intersango’s own ticketing system confirmed before the platform disappeared.
Holders, as ever, are divided. The case shows how much early-era bitcoin is still locked out of reach and how much a firm like CEL stands to earn helping claim it, if the courts agree the trail leads where the filings say it does.
