Someone in New York is trying to claim ownership of roughly 3.8 million Bitcoin, including wallets believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto, by invoking a property law that predates the internet by decades. The estimated value of the claim: approximately $293 billion.
The anatomy of a very ambitious lawsuit
The case was filed in New York Supreme Court by an anonymous plaintiff going by “Noah Doe,” alongside two Wyoming-based LLCs cryptically named ABC Company and XYZ Company. The initial filing landed on March 11, 2026, with an amended complaint following on May 1, 2026, under Index No. 153119/2026.
The plaintiffs are seeking a legal declaration of ownership over 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses. Their legal theory leans on New York’s abandoned property laws, statutes that date back to 1958, well before anyone imagined a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
According to the filing, the plaintiffs used an algorithm to identify these dormant wallets. They then reported the wallets to the New York Police Department as lost property, after what they describe as a year of unsuccessful attempts at on-chain notifications to locate the original owners.
