A pseudonymous plaintiff who calls himself “Noah Doe” and two Wyoming LLCs, ABC Company and XYZ Company, filed a lawsuit in New York on March 11 to seek a court declaration that they are the
A pseudonymous plaintiff who calls himself “Noah Doe” and two Wyoming LLCs, ABC Company and XYZ Company, filed a lawsuit in New York on March 11 to seek a court declaration that they are the legal owners of around 3.8 million Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $293 billion, lying in dormant addresses.
The lawsuit takes refuge in Article 7-B of the New York Personal Property Law, a statute regarding lost-and-found property.
As per the law, somebody who reports lost property to authorities and tries to locate the owner and finds no response within a set period can eventually claim legal title to the property.
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Noah Doe's lawsuit claims that 3.8 million Bitcoin lying in 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses are “lost property.” The plaintiff entered the details of these addresses on USB drives and delivered them to the NYPD’s 17th Precinct in tranches between December 2024 and April 2025.
The plaintiff next sent OP_RETURN messages, urging holders to claim ownership of these wallets within 90 days or they would be considered lost property.
One of the Bitcoin wallets that received this message is 1LwWtSs7tMCwcRczQd5kVMv3xpWw6w4Sxe.
A Satoshi-era wallet, it received 35.55 Bitcoin on March 27, 2011, when the cryptocurrency was worth less than a dollar.
As per mempool.space, the wallet sent 15 BTC to a new address and kept the remaining 20.55 BTC in a transaction recorded on block 952,104 at 16:46 UTC on June 2.
Source: mempool.space 
Source: mempool.spaceAnother such Satoshi-era wallet is 18sLgPeB9wQVrE8JoWqtKtnucbsx3Lw1m7, which first received 47.25 Bitcoin on June 17, 2011.
After not making any movements for nearly 15 years, the wallet finally moved 47.25 Bitcoin in a transaction recorded on the block 952,642 at 00:52 UTC on June 7.
Source: mempool.spaceSource: mempool.spaceGalaxy Research, the onchain research platform, flagged both transactions, with research head Alex Thorn remarking that many coins from 2011, claimed as "lost" in the New York lawsuit, are not "abandoned" and are "awakening and moving onchain."
On May 29, New York attorney Ian R. Cohen filed a proposed order to show cause with an amicus curiae brief before Judge Kathy King in New York County Supreme Court.
The independent brief challenges Noah Doe's lawsuit, arguing that Article 7-B is limited to tangible objects and doesn't extend to data listed on a globally distributed blockchain.
Bitcoin can't be physically deposited with police. Dormancy doesn't automatically translate into abandonment, Cohen put forward his arguments.
“Abandonment requires intentional relinquishment of ownership and an external act manifesting that intent,” the amicus argues. "Mere inactivity, no matter how prolonged, is not abandonment."
On June 5, Judge King halted any move toward a default judgment and scheduled a July 14 hearing to consider Cohen's amicus motion.
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