A lawsuit in New York involving the ownership of a large number of dormant Bitcoin addresses has seen new developments. The plaintiff is attempting to claim ownership of Bitcoins in a batch of long-untouched addresses, including addresses suspected of being linked to Satoshi Nakamoto, under New York State lost and found laws.
The plaintiff claims that the abandoned address belongs to the "lost property".
The case was filed in the New York State Supreme Court in March of this year. The plaintiff, Noah Doe, and two Wyoming LLCs, sued, requesting the court to confirm their legal ownership of a number of dormant addresses and the assets therein.
According to them, these long-untouched Bitcoins should be considered unclaimed property, and the finder can claim rights to them. The scope of these claims is extensive, even including 21,744 addresses that have long been speculated to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto, holding a total of approximately 1.09 million BTC.
Opponents argue that the lost property law does not apply to self-custodied Bitcoin.
On May 29, attorney Ian R. Cohen filed an amicus brief with the court, opposing the continuation of the lawsuit. He argued that New York lost and found law does not apply to self-custodied Bitcoin, and that a long-term inactivity of an address does not equate to the owner abandoning their property.
His core argument is that control of Bitcoin rests with the private key holder. Without control of the corresponding private key, one cannot claim the wallet's assets under the guise of "discovery." Furthermore, the mere absence of transaction records at an address for an extended period is insufficient to prove that these Bitcoins have become claimable lost property.
Furthermore, public blockchain records show that some addresses categorized as "owners unknown" still have owners actively using the assets. This has been used to question the validity of the plaintiff's identification method itself.
The court has ordered a stay of proceedings in the entire case.
On June 4, Judge Kathy King approved a hearing on the relevant opinions and ordered a stay of proceedings for the entire case. This means that the investigation or default judgment process has been suspended pending further review.
The plaintiff's lawyer subsequently objected to the stay decision. According to the latest disclosure, Cohen has submitted another rebuttal, continuing to argue that the case lacks a basis for judgment.
If the court had previously issued a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff without any objection, it could have created new legal disputes regarding a large amount of long-untouched on-chain assets. This temporary suspension of proceedings at least temporarily prevents this outcome from proceeding.
