A pseudonymous defendant, John Doe 33, filed a motion to dismiss claims in New York's Supreme Court regarding 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses. The lawsuit was initiated on March 11 by Noah Doe and two Wyoming-based companies, ABC Company and XYZ Company.

The plaintiffs argue that the coins associated with these addresses are abandoned property and request that ownership be transferred to them. According to court documents, this involves approximately 3.799 million BTC. Timechain Index founder Sani mentions about 3.7 million BTC (around $231 billion at the time of writing).

🚨🚨🚨A New York suit by “Noah Doe” and two Wyoming LLCs seeks a court order confirming their ownership of 39,069 long‑dormant Bitcoin wallets, arguing the wallets are legally “abandoned” property they found, reported to NYPD, noticed on‑chain and in the press, and then claimed… pic.twitter.com/34gH1Jqxxx

— Sani | TimechainIndex.com (@SaniExp) May 24, 2026

The addresses listed are publicly linked to Satoshi Nakamoto, as well as the address 1Feex, associated with the Mt. Gox hack. The identity of the individual controlling the private key for 1Feex remains unknown.

Case Overview

The plaintiffs base their argument on Article 7-B of New York's personal property law. They contend that dormant wallets can be viewed as property whose owners have not responded after notification. However, the defense argues that Bitcoin addresses are not entities or legal subjects that can be sued.

John Doe 33 claims that the plaintiffs effectively handed over their own USB drives to the police, on which they recorded public blockchain data. He argues that this does not establish grounds for recognizing the addresses as found property. He also noted that the pseudonym does not imply a connection to the 33rd address on the plaintiffs' list and is used for security, privacy, and to mitigate the risk of physical persecution for large crypto asset holders.

Galaxy's head of research, Alex Thorn, reported that John Doe 33 is linked to a wallet containing 5,000 BTC: the coins were deposited there in April 2014 and have not moved for over 12 years. At current rates, this balance is valued at approximately $300 million.

a real defendant has surfaced in the noah doe case, the ny suit trying to claim ownership of ~3.8m dormant btc including satoshis coins. "john doe 33,” pro se, filed the opening salvo of a motion to dismiss. and he’s not asking to be removed.. he's arguing the entire case is void https://t.co/8YmEMz1l9z

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) July 2, 2026

“The emergence of a single owner who contests the lawsuit and has the right to participate in the process completely changes the situation. He points to the jurisdictional and legislative flaws that are most difficult for the plaintiffs to circumvent,” Thorn wrote.

Previously, the case was proceeding against a list of addresses whose owners had not appeared in court. If no one had objected, the plaintiffs might have sought a ruling without a full adversarial position from the other side.

Inactivity Does Not Equal Abandonment

According to Bitbo, around 3.5 million BTC have not moved for over 10 years. An additional 6.6 million BTC have been inactive for more than five years.

Source: Bitbo.

Such coins may be lost, or investors might be securely storing private keys in cold storage and intentionally refraining from transactions. In the event of the owner's death, access may also depend on inheritance and key transfer.

At the end of May, Bitcoin lawyer Ian Cohen submitted an amicus curiae brief urging the court to dismiss the lawsuit. He argued that the law regarding found property applies to physical objects, not to results from scanning a public blockchain.

“Simple inactivity, no matter how long, does not constitute abandonment of property,” Cohen stated.

The lawyer also pointed out that New York's abandoned property law, amended in 2022 for virtual currencies, stipulates that such assets should be transferred to the state controller, not to private individuals or companies.

It is worth noting that in August 2025, it was reported that the “revived investment bank Salomon Brothers” intended to gain access to Bitcoin addresses it considers abandoned. The company used the OP_RETURN script—a standard mechanism for embedding arbitrary data into transactions.

The initiative aims to protect funds from criminals and “rogue states,” with the legal basis being the “doctrine of abandonment.” ForkLog investigated who is behind the Salomon Brothers brand and what implications this precedent may have for the industry.