MarketsShare this articleCopy linkX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailSatoshi-era Bitcoin at the Heart of $285 Billion Lawsuit After 14 Years
The 1LwWt address was served a legal notice from Salomon Brothers through Bitcoin's OP_RETURN field in July 2025, requiring proof of ownership by November 5, 2025.
By Shaurya Malwa Jun 6, 2026, 1:30 p.m. 2 min readMake preferred onKey Points:
- A Bitcoin address that has contained 35.55 BTC since March 2011 recently moved its coins, marking one of the initial on-chain actions from a named defendant in a significant New York lawsuit concerning 39,069 wallets.
- This case, initiated by a pseudonymous plaintiff “Noah Doe” alongside two Wyoming LLCs, claims legal ownership of approximately 3.8 million BTC under New York’s lost-property laws, with defendants informed via OP_RETURN transactions embedded in the blockchain.
- The transfer of the wallet, together with another from a similar 2011 address, coincides with a steep decline in Bitcoin prices, indicating that certain Satoshi-era coins, previously deemed abandoned, are still under the control of their original owners.
Recently, a Bitcoin address that had retained 35.55 BTC, valued at around $2.54 million and untouched since March 2011, executed a transaction. This event represents one of the first visible actions from a named defendant in a New York lawsuit asserting legal rights over 39,069 dormant wallets.
The address, 1LwWtSs7tMCwcRczQd5kVMv3xpWw6w4Sxe, transferred 15 BTC to a new address while retaining the remaining 20.55 BTC as change in transaction b90755b at 16:46 UTC on June 2, as reported by mempool.space data.
The original coins were received on March 27, 2011, when Bitcoin was priced at under a dollar.
The lawsuit, filed on March 11, 2026, in the New York County Supreme Court under index number 153119/2026 and revised on May 1, names a pseudonymous plaintiff known only as Noah Doe, along with two Wyoming LLCs, ABC Company and XYZ Company, who hold assigned interests.
The plaintiffs aim to claim legal ownership of about 3.8 million BTC, estimated at around $285 billion, invoking New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B, which pertains to lost-property claims, with Noah Doe acting as a "finder" under the abandoned-property doctrine.
The court approved the notification of defendants through OP_RETURN messages, a feature that allows users to embed brief text or URLs permanently on the blockchain.
Noah Doe's consultant, Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors, disseminated 98 batches of dust transactions across Bitcoin blocks 950,446 to 950,576 during June and July 2025, each containing 546 satoshis and a link to the abandonment notice. The 1LwWt wallet was served on July 31, 2025, providing a 90-day period for response.
Galaxy Research's Alex Thorn highlighted the wallet's transaction on X Tuesday morning, recognizing it as the firm's tracked Noah Doe defendant #38215. "Apparently, they were not, in fact, abandoned," Thorn noted.
This transaction occurred nearly seven months after the 90-day response period had lapsed and about three months post the formal lawsuit filing. According to Galaxy's analysis, numerous wallets moved coins during the initial notice campaign, resulting in their exclusion from the final defendant list.
The movement of the 1LwWt wallet, which was already implicated in the ongoing lawsuit, marks one of the first observable responses from within the active case.
Additionally, another wallet, dormant for 15 years, 1CDSyXAQxro4FPUoqAQb81642ruqDsUiNp, transferred 20 BTC ($1.48 million) to a SegWit address roughly 13 hours prior to the 1LwWt transaction, as per data from Arkham Intelligence. This 1CDSy wallet also received its original coins during the 2011 timeframe but does not appear to have been included in the Noah Doe notification campaign or the lawsuit.
These transactions coincide with a notable decline in Bitcoin's price, which has recently approached $70,000 for the first time in several weeks, influenced by the initial publicized sale of a Bitcoin ETF, a record streak of outflows, and stalled negotiations regarding a U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
Coins from the Satoshi era were acquired when Bitcoin had negligible dollar value, making any sale at current rates yield substantial profits on the initial investment.
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