A Bitcoin wallet named in a major New York lawsuit involving disputed ownership of nearly 3.8 million BTC has moved funds on chain for the first time since 2011. The wallet, which had been untouched for over a decade, transferred 35.55 BTC to a new address earlier this week. This transaction is considered one of the first publicly visible responses from any of the defendants named in the ongoing court case regarding control of the 39,069 “dormant” Bitcoin wallets.
Wallet activity in the legal case
On June 2 at 16:46 UTC, the wallet sent 15 BTC to a new address and retained the remaining 20.55 BTC as a balance in a different one as part of the same transaction. Data from Mempool confirms that the transaction was recorded in Bitcoin’s block number 952,104. The initial deposits to this wallet date back to March 27, 2011, when Bitcoin’s price was still below $1.
The lawsuit was filed on March 11, 2026, with the New York County Supreme Court and updated on May 1. Plaintiffs are listed as an individual under the pseudonym Noah Doe and two Wyoming-based firms, ABC Company and XYZ Company, who claim to have received assignment of the rights in question.
In a post on X Tuesday morning, Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research identified this wallet as belonging to defendant 38215, whom the company tracks under the alias Noah Doe, and noted this activity shows the wallet was never truly abandoned.
Scope of the ownership claim
The plaintiffs are asserting legal rights to about 3.8 million BTC under Section 7 B of New York’s Personal Property Law governing lost property—a sum now valued at approximately $285 billion. According to filing documents, Noah Doe is considered a “finder” under the doctrine of abandoned property.
The court allowed blockchain-based notifications to be sent directly to the defendant wallets, leveraging the OP_RETURN field in Bitcoin transactions. This field enables the addition of short, non-spendable messages to the blockchain for transparency and record-keeping.
Mini glossary: OP_RETURN is a space in Bitcoin transactions for attaching small, unspendable data. It is typically used for notes, confirmations, or links, with the information permanently visible on the blockchain.
Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors, acting as blockchain consultant for the Noah Doe group, launched 98 separate “dust transaction” packages in June and July 2025. Each transaction included 546 satoshis and a link to an abandonment notification. On July 31, 2025, a notification was sent to the wallet beginning “1LwWt” and a 90–day window for response began.
Transfer occurred months after response period
The BTC transfer from the wallet came about seven months after the 90–day response deadline expired and roughly three months after the lawsuit was officially filed. Galaxy Research notes that hundreds of wallets were dropped from the list of defendants after showing activity during the notification phase, but this latest transaction occurred after the wallet had already been specifically named in the lawsuit.
The movement of funds in an accused wallet during ongoing litigation has emerged as one of the first public signals from within the dispute.
In a separate event, another dormant wallet—untouched for roughly 15 years—transferred 20 BTC to a SegWit address about 13 hours before the movement in the “1LwWt” wallet, according to Arkham Intelligence data. However, this second wallet was not part of the Noah Doe notification campaign nor mentioned in the legal filings.
Old wallets draw notice amid ongoing market pressure
These moves come at a time when Bitcoin’s price has dropped back toward $70,000 following weeks of volatility. Market pressures have been intensified by the first significant, publicly disclosed Bitcoin sales by institutional strategies, a 10–session streak of withdrawals from spot ETFs, and ongoing diplomatic gridlock between the United States and Iran over ceasefire negotiations.
Bitcoin assets originating from the “Satoshi era”—when the coin was effectively valueless in dollar terms—have always attracted attention when they surface. Any sales at current prices would represent enormous gains relative to the original acquisition cost.
