Pseudonymous defendant contests $200B Satoshi Bitcoin suit

John Doe 33 filed a notice of appearance on June 30 in New York Supreme Court to oppose a lawsuit by ABC Company, XYZ Company and a plaintiff using the name Noah Doe. The suit seeks legal title to roughly 3.799 million Bitcoin linked to 39,069 inactive addresses, including coins widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. At current market prices the targeted coins are worth more than $200 billion; the plaintiffs listed the claim at $10 for statutory and jurisdictional purposes.

In his filing, John Doe 33 described himself as a “natural person and a real human being” and asked to proceed under a pseudonym to protect his identity, safety and privacy. He wrote that he is not “a Bitcoin blockchain address string, a digital wallet, a line of source code, or any other form of inanimate data.” The filing reserves all defenses and objections and includes a motion to dismiss. The document separates the individual from the numbered wallet entries on the plaintiffs’ exhibit, saying the caption’s John Does are labels for inanimate blockchain addresses and not for living people.

The plaintiffs rely on New York’s lost-property law, arguing prolonged inactivity on the public ledger supports declaring the assets unclaimed and awarding legal title to the claimants.

On-chain records show about 52 of the addresses named in the suit transferred roughly 34,335 Bitcoin before John Doe 33 filed his appearance. Those transfers altered the factual record and raised questions about equating long dormancy with abandonment, since inactivity can reflect cold storage, lost keys, long-term custody arrangements or a decision not to transact.

Attorney Ian Cohen filed an amicus brief challenging the plaintiffs’ legal theory. He wrote, “Plaintiffs’ theory is wrong on every level: textual, structural, constitutional, and practical. Article 7-B of the New York Personal Property Law was designed for physical objects physically found by human beings. It has no application to a computational scan of a public ledger. Dormancy on a public blockchain is not abandonment. It is, in many cases, the deliberate choice of a Bitcoin holder who stores private keys securely and transacts rarely.”

Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, noted that a person has entered the case rather than only submitting an amicus brief and commented, “A person (‘a real human being’ not ‘any form of inanimate data’) has filed a notice of appearance in the abandoned property litigation where ‘Noah Doe’ is claiming title over Satoshi’s coins. Someone is stepping up to fight Noah Doe as a respondent, not just amicus brief.”

The court must decide whether John Doe 33 can continue to appear under a pseudonym and whether his motion to dismiss should end the suit before claims of title move to discovery and contested ownership proceedings. The court has not yet ruled on the pseudonym request or the motion to dismiss.