Bitcoin Address Named in $260B Lawsuit Wakes After 15 Years, Moves 75 BTC

The old address had sat untouched since 2011. On Thursday evening, someone swept roughly 75 BTC — about $5 million — out of it, emptying the wallet entirely. As of Friday evening, the coins were still sitting at their new address, according to altcoinbuzz.io.

That wallet isn't anonymous in court papers: it appears in an amended complaint as defendant No. 3,419. On 22 May it received 546 satoshis, less than 40 cents, carrying the message "COURT-ORDERED LEGAL NOTICE" and a link to the plaintiffs' notice page. Thursday's transaction spent that dust payment along with the original 75 BTC and three other tiny deposits, merging all six inputs into a single payment. One of those small deposits came with a July 2025 owner notice from Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors, the consultant the plaintiffs hired to reach wallet holders.

The case itself was filed in New York County Supreme Court on 11 March 2026 and amended on 1 May 2026 under Index No. 153119/2026. It is believed to be the first attempt in US history to claim title to bitcoin under a lost-and-found property statute. The plaintiffs — named in the complaint as Noah Doe and two Wyoming companies — want a declaration that they own the coins in 39,069 addresses, arguing any wallet dormant for at least five years holds lost property claimable under New York law.

The headline number depends on who's counting. The filings peg the haul at roughly 3.8 million BTC and about $260 billion; Galaxy Research's read of the amended complaint puts it above 3.7 million BTC and around $274 billion. The defendant list runs past Satoshi-era coins to include the Mt. Gox hacker address, holding about 79,957 BTC, and the Counterparty burn address. Roughly 21,923 addresses carry the "Patoshi" nonce pattern tied to Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, and hold about 1.10 million BTC. The median defendant address holds 50 BTC, about $3.86 million, while the average holds 97.25 BTC, about $7.5 million.

What makes the filing strange is the valuation underneath it. An unnamed expert valued each address at under $10 "as is" at the time of finding, since recovering its contents is uncertain. That single number slots all 39,069 addresses into Section 257(2) of Article 7-B, the statute's fastest track, which vests title in the finder one year after the find date with no multi-year police holding period. Galaxy's onchain data tells a different story: 99.9% of the defendant addresses hold BTC worth well above $10.

Even a total win delivers a court declaration and nothing else — no private key, no ability to move a single coin. What the declaration could do is act as a cloud on title, a document the plaintiffs could wave at an exchange or custodian if any listed coins ever surfaced at a regulated venue. Nothing so far identifies who controls the keys, and nothing establishes the lawsuit caused the transfer; the filing reached the address as a transaction message, not as a person. The old address is now empty, and the next signal will be any further movement among the other 39,069.