Plaintiffs drop 44 wallets from Satoshi Bitcoin ownership lawsuit

The lawsuit, filed by an individual identified as Noah Doe and two Wyoming entities, originally targeted 39,069 wallets containing roughly 3.7 million BTC. Among these are addresses widely believed to be linked to Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, and the infamous Mt. Gox hacker. According to Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, every one of the 44 removed wallets executed on-chain transactions after the case was initiated. These specific addresses held 21,443 BTC at the start of the litigation but have since shifted 46,334 BTC, leaving a current balance of approximately 3,097 BTC.

The plaintiffs’ strategy relies on a New York lost-and-found law to classify long-dormant assets as abandoned property. However, the requirement that active wallets be removed from the suit highlights the central weakness in their theory: dormancy does not equate to loss. Critics, including attorney Ian R. Cohen and the Digital Chamber, have argued that self-custodied Bitcoin remains private property even after years of inactivity. With the court having already stayed proceedings ahead of procedural hearings, the ongoing movement of funds from the target list continues to undermine the claim that these assets were ever truly abandoned.