Satoshi-era bitcoin at center of $285 billion lawsuit moves after 14 years

The 1LwWt address received a legal notice from Salomon Brothers via Bitcoin's OP_RETURN field in July 2025 demanding the owner prove ownership by November 5, 2025.

What to know:

• A long-dormant Bitcoin address holding 35.55 BTC since March 2011 moved its coins this week, marking one of the first visible on-chain responses from a named defendant in a sweeping New York lawsuit over 39,069 wallets.
• The case, brought by a pseudonymous plaintiff “Noah Doe” and two Wyoming LLCs, seeks legal ownership of about 3.8 million BTC under New York’s lost-property statute, with defendants notified via OP_RETURN dust transactions embedded on the blockchain.
• The wallet’s move, along with a separate transfer from another 2011-era address, comes amid a sharp Bitcoin price slide and highlights that some so-called Satoshi-era coins targeted as abandoned are in fact still controlled by their original holders.

A Bitcoin address that had held 35.55 bitcoin worth $2.54 million untouched since March 2011 moved its coins earlier this wee,, becoming one of the first publicly visible responses from a named defendant in a New York state lawsuit that claims legal title over 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, per mempool.space data.

The original coins were received on March 27, 2011, when bitcoin traded at less than a dollar.

The lawsuit, filed March 11, 2026 at the 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 holding assigned interests, ABC Company and XYZ Company.

The plaintiffs seek legal ownership of roughly 3.8 million bitcoin valued at approximately $285 billion under New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B, the state's lost-property statute, with Noah Doe positioned as a "finder" under abandoned-property doctrine.

The court authorized on-chain service of the defendants through OP_RETURN messages, a Bitcoin transaction field that lets users embed short text or URLs permanently on the blockchain.

Noah Doe's blockchain consultant, Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors, broadcast 98 batches of dust transactions across Bitcoin blocks 950,446 to 950,576 in June and July 2025, each carrying 546 satoshis and a link to the abandonment notice. The 1LwWt wallet was served on July 31, 2025, with a 90-day window to respond.

Galaxy Research's Alex Thorn flagged the move on X Tuesday morning, identifying the wallet as the firm's tracked Noah Doe defendant #38215. "Apparently, they were not, in fact, abandoned," Thorn wrote.

The move came nearly seven months after the 90-day response window expired and roughly three months after the lawsuit was formally filed. Per Galaxy's analysis, hundreds of wallets moved coins during the original notice campaign and were excluded from the final defendant list.

The 1LwWt move, occurring after the lawsuit was already underway with the wallet named as a defendant, is among the first publicly visible responses from inside the active case.

Meanwhile, a separate 15-year-dormant wallet, 1CDSyXAQxro4FPUoqAQb81642ruqDsUiNp, moved 20 BTC ($1.48 million) to a SegWit address approximately 13 hours before the 1LwWt move, per Arkham Intelligence data. The 1CDSy wallet received its original coins around the same 2011 window but does not appear to have been targeted by the Noah Doe notice campaign or named in the lawsuit.

The movements come during a sharp bitcoin slide that has taken BTC to near $70,000 for the first time in weeks, with Strategy's first publicized bitcoin sale, a record 10-session spot ETF outflow streak, and stalled U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks all weighing on the market.

Satoshi-era coins were acquired before bitcoin had a meaningful dollar price, meaning any sale at current levels would mark a near-infinite gain on cost basis.

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