Latest Developments in the "Legal Claim to Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin" Case: Still in Trial Phase, Lawyers Seek to Avoid Default Judgment

Odaily Planet Daily News: Galaxy Digital Head of Research Alex Thorn has released the latest developments in the lawsuit "attempting to legally claim ownership of Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin." The case was initiated by two anonymous Wyoming companies seeking to have a court declare that addresses holding approximately 39,069 long-dormant Bitcoins constitute "abandoned property," thereby gaining legal title to the relevant BTC. The asset scale involved is reportedly over $200 billion, including some wallets believed to be from the "Satoshi era":

1. On May 29, Bitcoin lawyer Ian R. Cohen filed an amicus curiae brief, with core arguments including: New York's lost property law does not apply to self-custodied Bitcoin; "dormancy" does not equal "abandonment"; and the court lacks jurisdiction over private keys. He emphasized that in the Bitcoin system, "control of the private key constitutes ownership," and without control of the private key, no asset claim can be made.

2. On June 4, Judge Kathy King granted Cohen's hearing request and issued a stay order for the entire case, freezing subsequent proceedings pending formal hearings. This move effectively prevented the plaintiffs from obtaining a ruling via the "no response → default judgment" path.

3. On June 18, plaintiff's lawyer David Lin filed a motion to vacate or narrow the stay order, arguing that non-parties should not influence the case's progress and that if the defendants did not appear, the amicus brief would be unnecessary.

4. On June 19, Cohen filed a strong rebuttal, stating that the stay order was proactively issued by the court itself, and that "lack of defendant response" is precisely the structural problem of the case. The 39,069 addresses, as "defendants," cannot respond in court, so the court must rely on third-party opinions to avoid a one-sided judgment. He further questioned the plaintiffs' use of a mere $10 claim amount to bypass procedural thresholds while attempting to advance ownership determinations involving potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Bitcoin. He also emphasized that on-chain data shows some addresses "marked as dormant" have seen activity during the case, with at least 52 addresses moving approximately 34,335 BTC (about $2.48 billion), including 29 addresses transferring about 12,302 BTC "after the service of process," weakening the core premise of "abandoned assets."

Alex Thorn's analysis indicates the case remains in the trial phase. A potential default judgment could have far-reaching implications for the legal definition of self-custodied Bitcoin assets and spark long-term controversy over whether dormant addresses equate to unowned assets.