In the case filed in New York regarding the ownership of 39,069 Bitcoin wallets that have been dormant for a long time, one of the wallets mentioned moved on-chain for the first time. 35.55 BTC, which had been kept untouched since 2011, was sent to a new address at the beginning of the week. This action was considered among the first visible public responses from one of the defendants in active litigation.
The wallet in the case made a transaction
The wallet in question transferred 15 BTC to a new address at 16:46 UTC on June 2, and the remaining 20.55 BTC was kept at another address as the balance in the same transaction. According to Mempool data, the transaction was recorded in Bitcoin’s block 952,104. It was observed that the first entries into the wallet were made on March 27, 2011, and the Bitcoin price was below 1 dollar at that time.
The lawsuit was filed in New York County Supreme Court on March 11, 2026, and was updated on May 1. In the file, the plaintiff party consists of a person identified only by the pseudonym Noah Doe and two companies based in Wyoming that are stated to hold the transferred rights: ABC Company and XYZ Company.
Alex Thorn from Galaxy Research, in his post on
Scope of ownership claim
Plaintiffs claim legal title to approximately 3.8 million BTC under Article 7 B of the New York Personal Property Law, which relates to lost property. It is stated that the current value of this amount is approximately 285 billion dollars. In the case file, Noah Doe is listed as the “finder” within the framework of the abandoned property doctrine.
The court allowed on-chain notification to the defendant wallets. For this, the OP_RETURN field in Bitcoin transactions was used. OP_RETURN is known as a transaction field that allows short text to be added to the blockchain.
Mini dictionary: OP_RETURN is the field that allows small non-spendable pieces of data to be added to Bitcoin transactions. It is often used to carry notes, verification records, or connection information, and the written data appears permanently on the blockchain.
Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors, listed as Noah Doe’s blockchain advisor, published 98 separate powder transaction packages in June and July 2025. Each of these transactions involved 546 satoshis and an abandonment notification link. A notification was sent to the wallet address starting with 1LwWt on July 31, 2025, and 90 days were given for a response.
The move comes months after the deadline expired
The transfer in the wallet occurred approximately seven months after the 90-day response period expired and approximately three months after the case was officially filed. According to Galaxy’s assessment, hundreds of wallets moved during the initial notification campaign, so it was excluded from the final defendant list. This last transaction was made while the case was ongoing and the wallet was clearly mentioned as the defendant.
While the court process was ongoing, the movement of a wallet shown as a defendant on the chain stood out as one of the first public reactions from the file.
Separately, another wallet that had been dormant for nearly 15 years also moved 20 BTC to its SegWit address. According to Arkham Intelligence data, this transaction took place approximately 13 hours before the transfer in the 1LwWt wallet. However, it was reported that this second wallet was not targeted in the Noah Doe notification campaign and was not included in the case file.
Old wallets come to the fore as market pressure continues
This activity coincided with a period when the Bitcoin price fell back to around $ 70,000 weeks later. It was noted that Strategy’s Bitcoin sale, which was publicly announced for the first time in the market, a 10-session uninterrupted outflow series in spot ETFs, and the blockage in the ceasefire talks between the USA and Iran, put pressure on the market.
These assets from the Satoshi era were acquired in the years when Bitcoin did not yet have a meaningful dollar price. Therefore, a possible sale at current levels could mean extremely high returns in terms of cost.
