The case over ownership rights to 39,000 inactive Bitcoin wallets: court puts $235 billion lawsuit on hold
In the US, a New York state judge has suspended the consideration of a lawsuit claiming ownership rights to 39,069 inactive Bitcoin wallets. This decision prevents a quick victory for the anonymous plaintiffs before the court hearing scheduled for July 14.
Judge Cathy J. Kim signed the corresponding order on June 4. Approximately 3.8 million BTC are stored in these wallets, which at the current rate is valued at about $235 billion, writes Beincrypto.
What the plaintiffs are claiming
An anonymous plaintiff under the name Noah Dow and two companies filed the lawsuit in March. On May 1, they expanded it to include 39,069 crypto wallets.
They base their claims on New York state’s finders law. According to it, a person who finds property may obtain ownership rights if the true owner does not assert their rights. However, courts have never applied this principle to cryptocurrencies before.
An expert hired by the plaintiffs valued each of the wallets at less than $10. Meanwhile, analysts from Galaxy Research claim that the average wallet on the list contains 97.25 BTC, which at current prices amounts to about $6 million.
The first wallet on the list contains approximately 79,957 BTC, which are linked to the 2011 Mt. Gox crypto exchange hack. The reimbursement process for victims of this hack is still ongoing in Japan, so the plaintiffs’ claims may conflict with existing procedures.
Galaxy Research also associates about 21,900 addresses from the list, holding approximately 1.1 million BTC, with activity from wallets of Satoshi Nakamoto. Many of these use old Bitcoin addresses potentially vulnerable to future quantum computing.
Why the court suspended the case
The consideration was halted following a motion by New York attorney Ian R. Cohen, who owns bitcoins. He requested permission to submit an independent expert opinion to the court supporting the position against the lawsuit.
Cohen argues that the finders law applies only to physical objects that can be picked up and held. In his view, Bitcoin is stored on an open blockchain accessible for viewing by all users, so it cannot be considered lost property.
“A wallet that has not been used for ten years but whose private key is stored on a steel plate in a bank vault is not abandoned property. It is property securely stored,” Cohen noted.
He also referred to a 2022 law according to which unclaimed crypto assets should be transferred to the state, not to private individuals claiming to have found them.
Blockchain data also partially supports his arguments. After sending messages through the blockchain in 2025, owners of 339 wallets from the list made transactions resembling other fund movements from wallets of the Satoshi Nakamoto era.
The plaintiffs must provide their response by July 7. During the hearing on July 14, the court will decide whether this case will receive its first full-fledged opponent in the process.
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