John Doe 33 tells court you can't sue a string of characters holding $300M in $BTC

A pseudonymous defendant identifying themselves as "John Doe 33" has moved to dismiss a New York lawsuit seeking ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses, arguing that the address strings are not legal persons or entities subject to the court's jurisdiction. The defendant filed a notice of appearance and motion to dismiss on Thursday, claiming control of one of the wallets named in the suit and contending the case is legally defective because a publicly visible blockchain address cannot be "found" under New York's lost-property law. The filing challenges a May complaint brought by plaintiff "Noah Doe" and two Wyoming-based LLCs, ABC Company and XYZ Company, who allege the $BTC tied to the listed addresses constitutes abandoned property they reported to the New York Police Department and claimed under state lost-property statutes. Regardless of any ruling on ownership, the plaintiffs have not identified a mechanism to recover the Bitcoin without the private keys needed to access the wallets.

The complaint lists 39,069 Bitcoin addresses, including wallets widely associated with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto and the Mt. Gox hacker. The listed wallets collectively hold an estimated 3.7 million $BTC, worth about $234 billion, according to Sani, founder of Bitcoin analytics platform Timechain Index.

Blockchain data indicates that "John Doe 33" controls a wallet holding 5,000 $BTC received in April 2014 that has remained untouched for more than 12 years, making it worth more than $300 million at current prices, according to a Friday X post from Galaxy Digital head of research Alex Thorn. "That's ~100x the median defendant address. This is a real holder with real standing choosing to fight, not a bystander," Thorn wrote, adding that the filing prevented what had been a "near-certain" default judgment and challenged jurisdictional and statutory defects in the plaintiffs' case.

Separately, Bitbo data shows there are currently 3.5 million $BTC, worth about $215 billion, that have been dormant for the past 10 years and another 6.6 million coins, worth around $406 billion, that have been dormant for over five years. The motion was filed in the New York Supreme Court, and the case remains pending.