Digital Chamber tells NY court: dormant Bitcoin ≠ 'lost and found' 🗝️

The Digital Chamber, a blockchain trade association representing more than 250 members, filed an amicus brief on Monday urging a New York court to dismiss a lawsuit by plaintiffs "Noah Doe," ABC Company and XYZ Company seeking ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin ($BTC) addresses under the state's abandoned-property law. It is the second amicus brief in the case, after a May filing opposing similar claims by "Salomon Brothers." The plaintiffs filed suit in late May, asserting that the listed addresses hold an estimated 3.7 million to 3.8 million BTC worth roughly $234 billion, including wallets associated with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, and citing OP_RETURN notices they say were left unanswered.

The brief argues that treating wallets as abandoned based on inactivity would create a "pervasive cloud on title across self-custody wallets" and undermine the "foundational principles of digital property ownership, with negative ripple effects reaching the traditional finance industry." Defendants and amici contend the plaintiffs cannot be valid "finders" because they never held the private keys, never reached the actual owners with their notices, and used inactivity alone as proof of abandonment. As Galaxy Digital head of research Alex Thorn put it, "wallet inactivity by itself does not establish abandonment," and "ownership ultimately rests on control of the private keys rather than transaction history."

The Digital Chamber's filing warned that ruling for the plaintiffs "would not quiet title, it would disrupt entire industries and the expectations of every owner of digital assets." A pseudonymous defendant has already filed a notice of appearance and motion to dismiss, claiming control of one of the named wallets, and on Saturday address "1KV47" transferred 30 BTC (about $1.88 million) for the first time since August 2011. A Satoshi-era wallet, "1LwWtSs7tMCwcRczQd5kVMv3xpWw6w4Sxe," also moved 15 BTC in block 952,104, returning 20.55 BTC as change, according to Thorn's data, while at least 31 of the listed addresses moved 17,527 BTC in June, up from five addresses transferring 4,834 BTC in February.