Fourteen years later, Bitcoin in the era of Satoshi is once again at the center of a lawsuit. On July 6, a second amicus brief was filed opposing Noah Doe’s attempt to assert ownership of Satoshi’s coins as “abandoned property.”
The first filing occurred in May 2026, when Salomon Brothers claimed legal ownership of Satoshi’s coins.
However, the three pseudonymous plaintiffs — Noah Doe, ABC Company, and XYZ Company — are making attempts to gain legal ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets that they did not create and did not have access to.
Why does Noah Do claim that these wallets have been abandoned?
For context, Plaintiffs claim They posted notifications on the blockchain using Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN function. The goal was to direct wallet holders to an abandonment notice and provide them with 90 days to respond.
After the notice period, nearly 2,900 wallets were deleted, including 424 wallets that had been activated, leaving 39,069 wallets they say were abandoned.
But there are major hurdles in the lawsuit.
In addition to admitting that the plaintiffs lacked the private keys required to access Bitcoin (BTC)it provides no evidence that the owners saw the notifications and only uses wallet inactivity as evidence of abandonment.
The case presented by the defendants
Hence, the defendants demand the dismissal of the case. They warn that since many investors intentionally leave Bitcoin untouched for years, this would put digital property rights at risk.
The filing indicated,
Granting the relief sought by the plaintiffs would not calm ownership, but rather would disrupt entire industries and the expectations of every owner of digital assets.
Finally, it states that Noah Doe does not qualify as a legitimate “discoverer” because he only discovered public wallet addresses and never obtained the private keys or authority over Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, recent blockchain activity has further complicated this argument.
In Bitcoin block 952,104, Satoshi’s Bitcoin wallet with address 1LwWtSs7tMCwcRczQd5kVMv3xpWw6w4Sxewhich had owned 35.55 BTC since March 27, 2011, transferred 15 BTC to a new address and returned the remaining 20.55 BTC as change.
The wallet movement is noteworthy because it is one of 39,069 Bitcoin addresses named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by Noah Doe in New York.
Doe claims that the dormant wallets were abandoned and is suing for ownership of approximately 3.8 million bitcoins under New York law.
the 1LwWt Wallet was on the final list of defendants after failing to respond to the notice sent on July 31, 2025.
Commenting on this, Alex Thorne, Head of Research at Galaxy Research, noted:
It goes without saying that long-time Bitcoin owners often keep their coins in self-custodial custody for years without making any transactions.
Therefore, wallet inactivity in itself does not mean abandonment. This is because ownership ultimately depends on control of private keys rather than a transaction log.
Final summary
- The three plaintiffs, most of whom are Noah Doe, are trying to gain legal ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets.
- The defendants argue that Noah Doe does not qualify as a legitimate “discoverer” because he never obtained the private keys.
