A New York Supreme Court judge has paused a lawsuit seeking legal ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets, blocking the plaintiffs from pursuing a quick default judgment before a July 14 hearing.
The case, filed as ABC Company, XYZ Company and Noah Doe v. John Does 1–39,069, tests whether New York lost-and-found property law can be used to claim dormant Bitcoin addresses and the coins linked to them. The plaintiffs are asking for a declaratory judgment naming them as owners of the wallets and their contents.
Noah Doe claims he identified groups of inactive wallets, delivered USB drives containing the addresses to the NYPD, attempted to notify possible owners and later assigned most claimed rights to two Wyoming LLCs. The lawsuit treats public Bitcoin addresses as found property, even though the plaintiffs do not claim to control the private keys needed to move the coins.
The court stay keeps the case frozen while a proposed amicus brief is reviewed. The brief challenges the core legal theory and argues that a person who knows a public wallet address has not found or possessed the Bitcoin inside it.
Private Keys Drive The Ownership Fight
Bitcoin ownership onchain depends on private-key control. A public address can be viewed, copied and tracked by anyone, but it does not provide the ability to sign a transaction or move funds.
The proposed amicus brief argues that public wallet addresses are not physical objects that can be handed to police and later claimed under lost-property rules. It also argues that a court order cannot create the cryptographic control required to spend BTC from those addresses.
A legal title claim could still create market and custody problems even without private-key access. Exchanges, estate lawyers, custodians, bankruptcy administrators and wallet owners could face new disputes if dormant addresses become targets for lost-property claims.
The case also creates a direct clash between state property law and self-custody. A wallet can remain inactive for years because the owner is holding long term, using cold storage, managing inheritance, avoiding public exposure or simply choosing not to move coins.
Dormant Wallet Already Moved After Lawsuit Notice
One of the addresses named in the lawsuit already moved coins after receiving notice. A 2011-era wallet tied to the case moved 35.55 BTC, weakening the claim that long inactivity automatically means abandonment.
Public blockchain data can prove that coins have not moved. It cannot prove that an owner is dead, missing, unaware of the wallet or willing to abandon the asset. Treating inactivity as abandonment would put long-term holders and cold-storage users in a difficult legal position, especially for early Bitcoin addresses that may have sat untouched for more than a decade.
The wallet case also sits inside a wider legal debate over how public-chain behavior is interpreted. Broad onchain labels have already caused problems in sanctions screening, including the recent warning that HTX-related risk scores became too noisy after UK sanctions. Crypto privacy has faced the same pressure, with regulators warned not to treat privacy tools as evidence of criminal intent.
The July 14 hearing will decide whether the proposed amicus challenge can enter the case before the plaintiffs move further. Until then, the attempt to claim 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets remains paused.
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