NY Court Bitcoin lost-and-found bid targets alleged Satoshi wallets

An anonymous plaintiff in New York County Supreme Court is seeking legal title to about 3.8M BTC (about $293B) tied to dormant addresses widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. The case (Index No. 153119/2026) was filed March 11, 2026 and expanded May 1 to name 39,069 “John Doe” defendant addresses. Plaintiff “Noah Doe,” supported by two Wyoming LLCs (ABC Company and XYZ Company), says he used a proprietary algorithm to identify the wallets and delivered USB drives listing those addresses to the NYPD as found property. He invokes New York’s lost-and-found statute (Article 7-B) arguing title vests to the finder when the “value per address” is under $10, based on an unnamed expert’s valuation figure. Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn disputes that $10-per-address valuation, claiming the 39,069 addresses hold 3,799,629 BTC worth ~$293.5B at current prices. Thorn notes the gap between “under $10” and $293.5B is roughly nine orders of magnitude, weakening the statutory trigger. The defendant set includes addresses linked to the Mt. Gox hacker, a provably unspendable “burn” address, and “Patoshi” nonce-pattern wallets associated with Satoshi. Service is also questioned: the plaintiffs used OP_RETURN on-chain notices via 98 batch transactions. A default/merits process could emerge in late June 2026, but Galaxy expects the court may be unlikely to simply rubber-stamp full title on default given the novel theory and disputed affidavit of service. Even if granted, the Bitcoin ruling would mainly create a “cloud on title,” potentially affecting how coins are handled by exchanges/custodians rather than transferring private keys.