A Wyoming LLC filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court seeking ownership of 39,069 Bitcoin wallets it claims are abandoned property.
The plaintiff, operating under the pseudonym "Noah Doe," says he built an algorithm to identify dormant Bitcoin wallets that have been inactive for at least five to six years. He brought USB drives containing the wallet addresses to the NYPD's 17th Precinct, reporting them as found property under New York's lost-and-found law.
The complaint claims notices were sent to wallet owners via OP_RETURN blockchain messages, a public webpage, and a global press release. Owners were given 90 days to respond. Of the original 42,001 wallets flagged, 2,932 were removed after some showed on-chain activity. The remaining 39,069 wallets did not respond.
The plaintiff is now asking the court to declare him the legal owner of all 39,069 wallets and the Bitcoin inside them under New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B, which governs found and abandoned property.
The wallets reportedly hold approximately 3.8 million BTC. The complaint argues that losing a private key does not destroy the property interest in a wallet, likening dormant wallets to abandoned bank accounts.
The case names all 39,069 wallet holders as "John Doe" defendants. The plaintiff is not claiming to have the private keys to any of the wallets. He is seeking a court order declaring ownership.
The complaint was filed May 1, 2026 under Index No. 153119/2026.
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