A Bitcoin address that had kept 35.55 bitcoins worth $2.54 million intact since March 2011 moved its coins earlier this week, becoming one of the first publicly visible responses from a defendant named in a New York state lawsuit claiming legal title to 39,069 dormant bitcoin wallets.
The wallet, 1LwWtSs7tMCwcRczQd5kVMv3xpWw6w4Sxe, sent 15 BTC to a new address and held the remaining 20.55 BTC as change in transaction b90755b at 16:46 UTC on June 2, recorded in Bitcoin block 952.104, according to data from mempool.space.
The original coins were received on March 27, 2011, when bitcoin was trading at less than a dollar.
The lawsuit, filed on March 11, 2026 in New York County Supreme Court under index number 153119/2026 and amended on May 1, names a pseudonymous plaintiff identified only as Noah Doe along with two Wyoming LLCs that have assigned interests, ABC Company and XYZ Company.
The plaintiffs seek legal ownership of approximately 3.8 million bitcoins valued at approximately $285 billion under Article 7-B of the New York Personal Property Law, the state’s lost property statute, with Noah Doe positioned as a “finder” under the abandoned property doctrine.
The court authorized the defendants’ on-chain service through OP_RETURN messages, a Bitcoin transaction field that allows users to permanently embed short texts or URLs in the blockchain.
Noah Doe’s blockchain consultant Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors broadcast 98 batches of dust transactions in Bitcoin blocks 950,446 to 950,576 in June and July 2025, each containing 546 satoshis and a link to the abandonment notice. The 1LwWt wallet was delivered on July 31, 2025, with a 90-day period to respond.
Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn flagged the move Tuesday morning, identifying the wallet as Noah Doe defendant number 38215, tracked by the firm. “Apparently, in fact, they were not abandoned,” Thorn wrote.
The move came nearly seven months after the 90-day response period expired and about three months after the lawsuit was formally filed. According to Galaxy’s analysis, hundreds of wallets moved coins during the original notification campaign and were excluded from the final list of defendants.
The 1LwWt move, which came after the lawsuit was already underway with the wallet named as a defendant, is one of the first publicly visible responses from within the active case.
Meanwhile, a separate wallet dormant for 15 years, 1CDSyXAQxro4FPUoqAQb81642ruqDsUiNp, moved 20 BTC ($1.48 million) to a SegWit address about 13 hours before the 1LwWt move, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. The 1CDSy wallet received its original coins around the same window in 2011, but does not appear to have been targeted by Noah Doe’s tip-off campaign or mentioned in the lawsuit.
The moves come during a sharp decline in bitcoin that has taken BTC near $70,000 for the first time in weeks, with Strategy’s first publicized bitcoin sale, a record 10-session streak of spot ETF outflows and stalled US-Iran ceasefire talks weighing on the market.
Satoshi-era coins were acquired before Bitcoin had a significant dollar price, meaning any sale at current levels would mark a nearly infinite profit in terms of costs.
