A groundbreaking lawsuit claiming ownership of thousands of dormant Bitcoin wallets, including those linked to Bitcoin's earliest mining days, has taken a dramatic turn. The plaintiffs, two corporations and an anonymous individual known as Noah Doe, voluntarily dismissed 44 defendants after blockchain analysis revealed the addresses had recently moved substantial amounts of Bitcoin. The case, filed in New York County Supreme Court, originally targeted 39,069 wallets, collectively holding millions of BTC and valued at roughly $293 billion. The July 7 discontinuance leaves 39,025 wallets still in the legal crosshairs.
The withdrawn wallets are no minor matter. Galaxy Digital's head of research, Alex Thorn, tracked the on-chain activity and reported that the 44 addresses held 21,443 BTC at the time of filing. Since then, they transferred a staggering 46,334 BTC — worth approximately $2.9 billion at recent prices — leaving only around 3,097 BTC behind. This movement strikes at the heart of the plaintiffs' legal theory: that prolonged inactivity on a blockchain constitutes abandonment, entitling them to ownership. The plaintiffs themselves had earlier removed hundreds of wallets that showed on-chain action, acknowledging in their amended complaint that such activity disproves abandonment.
The lawsuit now faces a direct counterattack from an anonymous defendant, John Doe 33, who claims ownership of the assets swept into the case. His July 8 filing argues that public Bitcoin addresses are not legal persons and cannot be sued, that copying public blockchain data onto USB drives does not grant possession, and that the notice campaign using OP_RETURN messages fails to actually notify wallet owners — especially those using cold storage. John Doe 33 further alleges that a genuine owner had contacted the plaintiffs' counsel by phone, contradicting the claim that all owners were unreachable.
Industry observers are alarmed. The Digital Chamber, a blockchain trade association, filed an amicus brief on July 6, warning that accepting the plaintiffs’ theory would cast a cloud over all self-custodied digital assets, forcing holders to transact merely to prove ownership. Attorney Ian R. Cohen filed a separate amicus brief in May, questioning whether New York’s lost-property framework applies to public blockchain addresses. Both briefs underscore the high stakes: a ruling for the plaintiffs could redefine when digital property is considered abandoned, impacting not just Satoshi-era coins but any tokenized asset where quiet ownership is proven only by cryptographic keys.
