The United States encryption lobby, Digital Chambers, has submitted an amicus curiae opinion to the Supreme Court of New York requesting the Court to dismiss an action surrounding the silent Bitcoin wallet. The case sought to identify 3.8 million bitcoin as “abandoned property”, involving 39,069 long-outstanding wallet addresses.

The plaintiff invoked the Lost Goods Act 1958.

According to reports, this action was filed by an anonymous plaintiff. Using the alias Noah Doe in court documents, he attempted to claim rights to long inactive wallets by invoking section 7-B of the New York State Personal Property Act 1958.

The plaintiff's core statement was that if the assets had been unused for a long time, they could be considered abandoned. It was reported that this individual had also filed a court notice in the chain through the OP RETURN field of the Bitcoin transaction, and requested the court to award the relevant Bitcoin to himself after receiving no response.

Industry organizations opposed the application of the old law

In its submission, Digital Chambers stated that the long-term absence of a record of transactions did not amount to a waiver of the holder ' s property rights, more likely than a typical long-term possession.

It was also of the view that if the court accepted the claim, all cold wallet holders might face continuing uncertainty about property rights. Another proposition was that the legal provisions that had been used to deal with “street lost” did not apply to decentralized block chain addresses.

  • Long-term non-use of a wallet does not mean a waiver of ownership rights.
  • If the lawsuit is established, the cold purse will be recognized or affected.
  • The traditional law of loss and loss is used directly in the chain address.

31 addresses for immediate resumption of activities

During the court hearing, the chain data also refuted the expression “dead wallet”. Galaxy Digital states that over the past month, 31 addresses in the list were reactivated and the relevant holder transferred a total of 17,527 bitcoins.

In addition, an actual holder had formally joined the case under the alias of John Doe 33 and requested the court to dismiss the proceedings. He stated to the Court that he was a real rights person and not a host of orphan data.

The court has suspended the case.

At present, the Supreme Court of the State of New York judge has suspended the case proceedings in order to prevent the plaintiff from obtaining a default decision in the absence of the remaining approximately 39,000 wallet holders.

Reports indicate that the Court ' s next hearing is scheduled for 14 July 2026, at which time the Digital Chambers ' dissenting opinion will be considered. If the court were to remain seized of the case, its effects might not be limited to the addresses involved, but would also touch upon the legal determination of assets in the long chain of silence.