Key Insights:
- An anonymous plaintiff known as “Noah Doe” and two Wyoming LLCs are seeking ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses. They hold roughly 3.8 million BTC, including wallets widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto.
- The lawsuit relies on New York’s lost-property laws, but crypto lawyers argue that identifying a wallet does not establish ownership and that possession of private keys remains the key legal test.
- A New York judge has paused the case until a July 14, 2026, hearing. Blockchain data shows many of the supposedly abandoned wallets have recently moved funds, weakening the plaintiffs’ abandonment claim.
In March 2026, an anonymous group filed a lawsuit in New York’s Supreme Court, claiming ownership of millions of bitcoins. The plaintiffs, using the name “Noah Doe” and two unnamed Wyoming LLCs, ask the court to declare them owners of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses.
Those addresses hold roughly 3.8 million BTC (about 18% of Bitcoin’s total supply). Crucially, the suit includes the entire set of addresses believed to belong to Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto (about 21,744 “Patoshi” wallets holding 1.09 million BTC).
In effect, the anonymous plaintiffs are asking a New York court to apply the state’s old lost-and-found law to Bitcoin’s blockchain.
Addresses Tied to Satoshi Nakamoto and Mt. Gox
The complaint (Index No. 153119/2026) maps the abstract concept of “finding” to Bitcoin. The plaintiffs say they identified the dormant addresses, delivered lists of them to the NYPD, and gave public notice via on-chain messages and press releases.
They then invoke Article 7-B of New York’s Personal Property Law, a lost-property statute, to argue that after a statutory period, the coin holders must be considered absent and title should vest in the finder.
According to filings and analysis, the target set is astonishing. It contains nearly 3.8 million BTC (about 18% of supply).
This includes roughly 21,923 Satoshi-era addresses linked to Satoshi Nakamoto, plus high-profile wallets like a 79,957-**BTC Mt. Gox hacker address and even a provably unspendable “burn” address.
Galaxy Digital researchers warn that the total market value of these coins exceeds $293 billion. The plaintiffs’ own complaint takes the opposite view: it treats each found wallet as effectively worthless for legal purposes.
The filing claims that an expert appraised every wallet at less than $10 because the private keys are “unavailable.” Under New York law, property valued under $10 can follow an expedited claim process.
If a judge buys this argument, the plaintiffs say, the title would quietly vest after the one-year notice window closes.
Satoshi Nakamoto Wallet Claim Faces Legal Challenges Ahead of July Hearing
Crypto attorneys and industry observers have responded strongly. On May 29, seasoned blockchain lawyer Ian R. Cohen (known as @btclawyerguy) filed an amicus brief arguing the “Noah Doe” case is legally baseless.
Cohen notes that New York’s lost-property laws were never designed for self-custodied cryptocurrency. “With Bitcoin, possession of the private key is ownership,” he emphasizes.
Simply identifying an address on the public ledger is not the same as finding physical property. Cohen insists that dormancy alone cannot prove abandonment and that New York courts lack jurisdiction over privately held keys.
Justice Kathy J. King agreed to pause the case. On June 4, she granted Cohen a hearing as amicus and stayed all proceedings pending further review.
The next hearing is scheduled for July 14, 2026. If the stay is lifted, the plaintiffs could, as Cohen warns, obtain a default judgment against all listed addresses without facing any real opponent, potentially jeopardizing “property rights tied to billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.”
Critics say this underscores the irony: even a successful judgment would only create a paper title, not grant any private keys or control over funds.
On-Chain Evidence Counters Abandonment Claim
Blockchain data also calls the abandonment theory into question. Analysts found that after the plaintiffs’ 2025 notice campaign, many of the supposedly “found” wallets were not actually idle.
Hundreds of them moved coins and were explicitly removed from the suite. Galaxy’s on-chain analysis identified 52 of the contested addresses that recently spent a total of 34,335 BTC. 29 others moved 12,302 BTC after receiving notice.
In other words, the public ledger shows real holders still active. As one filing bluntly noted, the complaint itself admits some listed addresses have recorded outbound transactions.
These movements suggest that many owners (perhaps Satoshi Nakamoto or others) still hold keys and control the coins, undercutting any claim they were “lost.”
Implications for Bitcoin Crypto Ownership
The unusual case has drawn attention across crypto circles. Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz remarked on X that a state court ruling on anonymous Bitcoin wallets “requires consensus” and was a dubious reach.
Galaxy’s report warns that a plaintiff victory could set a problematic precedent: it would place a legal “cloud on title” over any bitcoins that surface on exchanges.
In practice, a New York declaration wouldn’t let the plaintiffs spend Satoshi Nakamoto’s coins. However, it might embolden others to try similar suits or force custodians to freeze dormant funds pending legal resolution.
For now, no coins have moved as a result of the suit. The case is paused, and any relief to “Noah Doe” or the LLCs remains speculative.
Still, this saga spotlights real questions about how 21st-century crypto should interface with 20th-century laws. As one Galaxy researcher put it, the case is “far-fetched” yet “deserves a careful look.”
Whether the courts ultimately bless this claim, the outcome could influence how the industry thinks about Bitcoin price in the context of ownership, custody, and lost-property rules.
