A New York court has scheduled a July hearing in a bitcoin lawsuit seeking ownership of thousands of dormant bitcoin wallets. Some of these wallets are believed to be linked to Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin lawsuit seeks to control $226 billion in dormant Bitcoin holdings
According to court records, the lawsuit was filed by Noah Doe and Wyoming-based ABC Company and XYZ. In this lawsuit, they seek to claim 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets.
The complaint states that the wallets contained an estimated 3.7 million bitcoins, worth approximately $286 billion at the time the lawsuit was filed. The market value of the holdings is about $226 billion at current market prices.
Under New York law, the titles are considered abandoned property, prosecutors say. They say the issue with the wallets has prevented the original owners from accessing or spending bitcoin, meaning they are permanently unused. These addresses are reported to the New York Police Department and should be treated like unclaimed or lost property, the filing says.
The portfolios in the suit include titles Associated with Satoshi Nakamoto. Moreover, it targets the “1Feex” wallet, where funds were stolen in the Mt.Gox hack.
The court sets a date for the hearing
Galaxy Digital Alex Thorne Highlight The court has set a heating date in the Bitcoin case. The motion was filed June 5 in the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, 60 Center Street, and a hearing is scheduled for July 14 at 10:30 a.m. before Judge Cathy J. King.
Furthermore, the order calls for both parties to appear and explain why the court denied permission to attorney Ian R. Cohen to proceed with the case as amicus curiae and accept his brief opposing the plaintiff’s claims.
The court also set a deadline of June 18 to file motion papers and July 7 to oppose the motion in the Bitcoin lawsuit. The order also states that proceedings on plaintiffs’ claim for declaratory judgment are “hereby stayed pending the hearing and determination of this motion.”
Meanwhile, Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, criticized Noah Doe’s move to file a lawsuit against dormant BTC holdings. He questioned the legal basis of this Bitcoin lawsuit.
Moreover, Schwartz wrote on X that the “most serious flaw” in this case is that it claims jurisdiction because the property is located in New York.
He also said that there was “no basis for a court to have jurisdiction” over dormant Bitcoin wallets. Schwartz added that the theory is “comically bad.”
