Bitcoin wallet suit targets $285B in dormant coins
A New York lawsuit filed by Noah Doe seeks legal ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallet addresses.Plaintiff Noah Doe filed suit in New York on May 1, 2026, seeking a declaratory judgment that 39,069 abandoned Bitcoin wallets belong to him under New York lost-property law.The filing was made through Brooklyn firm Lewis and Lin LLC under New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B, the lost-property statute covering found and abandoned property.The 39,069 listed wallets reportedly hold an estimated 3.7 million BTC worth approximately $285 billion, including addresses linked to Satoshi Nakamoto and the Mt. Gox hacker. A New York Bitcoin wallet lawsuit filed on May 1, 2026 in the Supreme Court of the State of New York asks a court to declare that 39,069 dormant addresses legally belong to plaintiff Noah Doe. The complaint, filed under index number 153119/2026 through Brooklyn law firm Lewis and Lin LLC, invokes New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B. Doe says he discovered the wallets in October 2024 after identifying a security vulnerability that caused owners to permanently lose the ability to withdraw their holdings. He developed a proprietary algorithm to identify wallets meeting the legal standard for abandonment, reported them to the NYPD, and spent more than