Written by: Shannon@金财经

Find dormant "abandoned" wallets, then go to the police station to "lost and found" them, and then file a lawsuit in court to confirm that you are the legal owner of these wallets. Can you still do this?

A recent lawsuit to bring "digital wallets" into the framework of New York's traditional lost and found laws has attracted attention in the encryption industry.

A man who called himself "Noah Doe" walked into the New York Police Department in 2025 with a USB flash drive containing 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets, registered it as "lost and found" and got a receipt.

Now, he is filing a lawsuit in New York, asking to be recognized as the legal owner of all these Bitcoins. There are about 3.8 million Bitcoins in these 39,069 Bitcoin wallets, worth more than 280 billion US dollars based on US$75,000/BTC. He claimed to have written an algorithm to find these wallets and invoked a 1958 New York State "found finder" law to claim ownership.

Among them, Wallet No. 1 is the address of the Mt. Gox exchange hacker: about 80,000 Bitcoins were stolen in 2011 and have not been used for 15 years. They are now worth about $6 billion. All on-chain analysts around the world are paying close attention to the movements of this wallet.

The New York High Court ruling may become a landmark precedent in the field of crypto assets.

1. Overview of the case

This is a civil lawsuit filed by three plaintiffs - ABC Company, XYZ Company and natural person Noah Doe - to the New York State Supreme Court, requesting the court to pass a declaratory judgment (Declaratory Judgment) to formally confirm the plaintiff's ownership of 39,069 abandoned cryptocurrency digital wallets.

This case is highly innovative in law. The core question is: Is the digital wallet considered "property" under the "lost and found" legal framework of New York State? Does the discoverer have a legal right to claim ownership?

2. Background of the prosecution: A large number of abandoned cryptocurrency wallets were discovered

2.1 How Noah Do "discovered" these wallets

In October 2024, Noah Do identified a security vulnerability in the digital wallet field, which caused a large number of holders to lose the ability to withdraw the assets in their wallets, and then abandoned these wallets. In the fall of the same year, he developed a proprietary algorithm ("Algorithm") for identifying apparently abandoned digital wallets that had been dormant or inactive on the blockchain for a long time.

According to this algorithm, Noah Do discovered the abandoned wallet at three time nodes:

A total of approximately 42,001 wallets were found (after deduplication).

2.2 Criteria for determining whether a wallet is deemed "abandoned"

The complaint lists three basis for judgment:

1. Blockchain data shows that these wallets have not had any transactions for at least five years;

2. Cryptocurrency prices have experienced significant increases during this period - any rational investor would have made trades to protect assets, but these wallets were unmanned;

3. Despite significant growth in market capitalization, these wallets have not generated any buying or selling activity.

3. Plaintiff’s "Lost and Found" Procedure

To comply with New York State law on lost and found property, Noah Doe has taken the following series of measures:

Step one: Report to the police. He submitted the USB drive containing the wallet address data to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) 17th Precinct three times and obtained an official property receipt to form documentary evidence.

Step 2: Hire an independent expert to evaluate. Independent experts have determined that the "as is" value (subjectively assessed value) of these digital wallets at the time of discovery was less than $10 due to the considerable challenges and uncertainties in restoring their intrinsic value. Another blockchain expert confirmed that these wallets actually exist on the blockchain, contain digital assets, and have been dormant for at least five years.

Step 3: Notify the original wallet holders on a large scale. This is one of the most creative aspects of the case. From June to July 2025, Noah Multi-commissioned blockchain experts used "OP_RETURN" to send on-chain messages to each discovered wallet, directing the holder to visit an "Abandonment Announcement" webpage, providing them with up to 90 days (as of October 10, 2025) to claim ownership.

Step 4: Global media releases announcement. On August 7, 2025, Noah Do issued a press release to the world through the strategic consulting firm Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors Inc. The announcement was disseminated through more than 820 media channels in 37 countries around the world, covering mainstream financial media such as CoinDesk, Yahoo Finance, and Investing.com. It is estimated that it has directly reached about 10 million people and indirectly affected as many as 225 million people. Global digital asset giant Galaxy Digital also released a special report to its customers and the public on this matter.

4. Notification results and status quo

After more than a year of hard work, as of the date of prosecution:

• Of the approximately 42,001 wallets originally discovered, 2,932 were removed due to various reasons (424 of these wallet holders used on-chain actions to indicate to Noah Do that the wallets were not abandoned);

• The final remaining 39,069 wallets received no response during the entire notice period. There are approximately 3.8 million Bitcoins in these 39,069 Bitcoin wallets, worth more than 280 billion US dollars based on US$75,000/BTC. The plaintiff requested the court to identify these Bitcoins as abandoned property.

5. Ownership transfer structure

On December 1, 2025, Noah Do transferred the vast majority of his abandoned wallet interests to ABC Company (the company was wholly owned by him at the time). That same month, he transferred 98% of his membership interest in ABC Corporation to an irrevocable trust, retaining 2%. Subsequently, ABC Company transferred 17.7% of the wallet equity to XYZ Company.

Currently, the three plaintiffs jointly hold 100% ownership of all 39,069 abandoned wallets:

• ABC Corporation: A limited liability company formed under the laws of Delaware, registered in Wyoming and partly owned by Noah Doe;

• XYZ Corporation: registered in Wyoming and managed in New York by New York State residents;

• Noah Do: New York State citizen, holds 18 wallets and 2% equity in ABC Company.

6. Legal Claims: Declaratory Judgment

The plaintiff filed a single cause of action—an application for a declaratory judgment based on Section 3001 of the New York Civil Procedure Law (CPLR).

The plaintiff cited Article 7-B of the New York State Personal Property Law (N.Y. Pers. Prop. Law) (provisions related to lost property) and claimed:

1. Digital wallets constitute "property" in the legal sense - The complaint demonstrates in detail the structural similarities between digital wallets and bank accounts (both have unique identifiers, transaction records, and can be transferred in but require a private key to transfer out), and believes that they should receive equal legal protection;

2. Noah Doe has obtained title according to law - According to Section 252(1) of the Personal Property Law, he submitted the discovery to the NYPD; according to Section 257, ownership will vest in the discoverer after the NYPD returns the property or one year after the discovery;

3. The court’s confirmation of ownership is a practical necessity—Without court confirmation, the plaintiff will continue to face third parties questioning its ownership when trading or transferring these wallets, causing continued damage.

7. Appeal

The plaintiff requested the court to declare: The three plaintiffs are the legal owners of the above-mentioned 39,069 abandoned digital wallets and the assets they contain.

In addition, the plaintiff also listed in the attachment the blockchain addresses of all 39,069 abandoned wallets (numbered from 1 to 39,069), which include addresses in Bitcoin (Legacy P2PKH, P2SH format) and native Segregated Witness (bech32) formats, covering a variety of mainstream blockchain protocols.

8. Significance and Highlights of the Case

This case is one of the first cases known to bring cryptocurrency digital wallets into the traditional lost and found legal framework for judicial processing, and has important legal precedent value.

The core controversial issues include:

• Does the digital wallet "public key address" constitute identifiable "property" under New York law?

• What does it legally mean to "discover" and "possess" a digital wallet when the private key cannot be obtained?

• Does the OP_RETURN message on the chain constitute a sufficient notification method in a legal sense?

• Does the New York lost and found system apply to decentralized digital assets?

The court’s rulings on these issues will have a profound impact on the legal characterization of property in the cryptocurrency field.