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“Francis is not very forthcoming about his ever-changing stories,” Ms. deSouza’s lawyers said in a file.

No secret caches materialized. A spokesperson for Mr. deSouza said he disclosed all of his cryptocurrency holdings at the outset of the divorce. “Francis told his ex-wife as soon as he found out that Bitcoin had succumbed to Mt. Gox bankruptcy,” the spokesperson said. “BTC’s split would have been completely uncontroversial had it not been for the Mt. Gox bankruptcy.”

Ms deSouza declined to comment through her lawyer.

However, the appeals court ruled that Mr. deSouza, 51, who is now the company’s CEO, biotech company IlluminaHe had violated the rules of the divorce process by not fully informing his wife of his cryptocurrency investments.

Mt. Gox was ordered to give nearly half of the total number of Bitcoins he owned before his bankruptcy to Ms. deSouza, leaving her with 57 Bitcoins worth roughly $2.5 million at today’s prices. Ms. deSouza’s Bitcoins are now worth more than $23 million.

Not all crypto divorces involve such large sums. A few years ago, Nick Himonidis, a forensic detective in New York, worked on a divorce case where a woman accused her husband of underreporting crypto assets. With the court’s permission, Mr. Himonidis came to the husband’s house and searched his laptop. He found a digital wallet containing about $700,000 worth of the cryptocurrency Monero.

“She was like: ‘Oh, that wallet? I didn’t even think I had it’”, Mr. Himonidis recalled. “’Seriously dude?’ I said.

In another instance, Mr. Himonidis said he discovered that a husband had transferred $2 million in cryptocurrencies from his account. Coinbase exchange, a platform where people buy, sell and store digital currencies. A week after his wife filed for divorce, the man transferred the money to digital wallets and then left the United States.