An unnamed defendant has appeared in a New York court to challenge a lawsuit seeking control of more than $200 billion in long-dormant coins associated with the network’s early days, including coins associated with Bitcoin’s pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
The defendant, using the name John Doe, 33, filed a notice of appearance in New York Supreme Court on June 30, saying he is a “natural person, a real human being” with constitutionally protected property rights.
He said he is not “a Bitcoin blockchain address string, a digital wallet, a line of source code, or any other form of inanimate data.”
The filing marks a shift in a lawsuit filed by ABC Company, XYZ Company, and a pseudonymous plaintiff acting as Noah Do, which claims ownership of Bitcoin associated with 39,069 inactive addresses under New York’s lost property law.
The targeted wallets contain coins widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto and other early Bitcoin miners.
There is a person on the other side of this incident
The arrival of John Doe 33 changes the tone of litigation, which has so far centered around silent blockchain addresses.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit treats the inactive wallet as lost property and seeks legal ownership of approximately 3,799,000 Bitcoins.
At current market prices, the coins in question are worth more than $200 billion, but the plaintiffs are seeking only $10 for legal and jurisdictional reasons.
This gap has caught the attention of the entire crypto industry, as the lawsuit asks the court to grant ownership to one of the largest dormant Bitcoin pools ever identified, based on claims that inactivity could support a forfeiture theory.
With the filing of John Doe 33, courts are now faced with another question: whether persons who may have rights associated with these assets can be reduced to numbered wallet entries.
Commenting on the development, Alex Thorn, Head of Research at Galaxy Digital, said:
“A person (a “real human being,” not “any form of inanimate data”) has filed an appearance in an abandoned land lawsuit in which “Noah Do” is claiming ownership of Satoshi’s coins. Someone is coming forward to fight Noah Do as a defendant, not just a court brief.”
The accused is also fighting to protect his anonymity.
Meanwhile, a mysterious claimant is seeking to contest the case without exposing himself to the risks associated with holding large amounts of cryptocurrencies.
John Doe, 33, said the pseudonym was adopted to protect his identity, safety, and privacy in a high-profile case that risks the disclosure of personal information, extortion, and physical targeting of identified cryptocurrency holders.
He also said he has separately asked the court for permission to sue under a false name. John Doe 33 went further by setting aside all defenses and objections, including those raised in the accompanying motion to dismiss.
Filing, on the other hand, carefully separates the person from your wallet list. John Doe, 33, said his name does not correspond to the 33rd Bitcoin address or to any specific numbered entry in the plaintiff’s exhibit.
He argued that although the numbered John Does in the caption is Plaintiff’s label for an inanimate blockchain address, he appears as a person.
This difference could shape the next steps in the case. If the court allows pseudonymous participation, it could give other holders a way to contest the lawsuit without publicly linking themselves to their valuable Bitcoin addresses.
On-chain movement and legal warnings pose challenges
John Doe 33’s appearance comes after the case was already strained by on-chain moves and outside legal challenges.
crypto slate We previously reported that approximately 52 of the addresses named in the lawsuit transferred approximately 34,335 Bitcoins, worth more than $2 billion at current market valuations.
These transfers created factual problems before John Doe 33 created legal problems. Bitcoin wallets can remain inactive for years for reasons unrelated to abandonment, such as long-term storage, cold storage, loss of keys, or a deliberate decision not to transact.
This means that this move weakened the simple link between dormancy and surrender.
Separately, the case also faced organized legal resistance in late May, when pro-Bitcoin lawyer Ian Cohen filed a court brief challenging the viability of Bitcoin.
At the time, Cohen claimed:
“Plaintiffs’ theory is wrong on every level: textual, structural, constitutional, and practical. Section 7B of the New York Personal Property Law was designed to cover objects physically discovered by humans. It does not apply to computer scans of public ledgers. Dormant on public blockchains is not abandonment; it is often a deliberate choice by Bitcoin holders to keep their private keys safe and make few transactions.”
Meanwhile, Thorne previously called on major industry players to intervene in the matter before setting a precedent for claiming dormant crypto wallets through abandoned property claims, citing the novelty of the case.
Given these developments, two issues will likely be at stake in the next phase of the litigation: whether the court will allow John Doe, 33, to plead the case under a false name, and whether John Doe’s motion to dismiss can halt Noah Doe’s bid before the lawsuit proceeds to assert title to the wallet.
Rulings on either issue could determine whether other potential holders have a safe path to court, or whether the lawsuit continues to test how far lost property laws can be applied to inactive Bitcoin addresses.
(Tag Translation) Bitcoin
