A pseudonymous Bitcoin holder using the name John Doe 33 has moved to dismiss a New York lawsuit that seeks legal ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses, becoming the first individual to answer a claim that treats roughly 3.8 million BTC as abandoned property.
The holder entered a notice of appearance on June 30 at the Supreme Court of the State of New York, describing himself in the filing as “a natural person and a real human being” who holds constitutionally protected property rights, and stating that he is not “a Bitcoin blockchain address string, a digital wallet, a line of source code, or any other form of inanimate data.”
He filed it alongside a motion to dismiss, giving the suit its first live opponent after months running against addresses no one had come to defend.
John Doe 33 Rejects The Abandoned-Property Frame
The plaintiffs, a claimant operating as Noah Doe and two Wyoming limited liability companies, want the court to declare them owners of about 3.799 million Bitcoin under Article 7-B of the New York Personal Property Law, which governs lost and found property.
They peg the claim at ten dollars for jurisdictional reasons, though the addresses, several tied to Satoshi Nakamoto and other early miners, hold coins worth more than $200 billion today. A ruling on title would settle little on its own, since moving the Bitcoin still requires the private keys, the reason US authorities have leaned on forfeiture rather than declaration to take ownership of seized crypto.
By appearing as a person, John Doe 33 forces a question the plaintiffs built the case to sidestep, whether someone with a real stake in the coins can be treated as a line item in a list of addresses. He reserved every defense in his motion and told the court that the numbered John Does in the caption are labels attached to inert blockchain data, not people who can be sued.
His filing follows an objection from pro-Bitcoin lawyer Ian Cohen, whose amicus brief in late May led Justice Kathy J. King to freeze the case on June 5 and set a July 14 hearing. The dispute joins several crypto matters testing US courts this year, among them a $400 million Ponzi plea from former Goliath Ventures chief Christopher Delgado.
John Doe 33 Moves to Shield His Identity
John Doe 33 asked to keep his name off the record, telling the court that appearing openly would expose him to doxxing, extortion and physical harm of the kind that has followed known holders of large Bitcoin sums. He filed a separate request for leave to litigate under the pseudonym.
A ruling either way sets the terms for everyone named in the suit. Should the court allow anonymity, others among the 39,069 addresses could challenge the claim without tying their names to valuable wallets. Two questions now sit before the court, whether John Doe 33 can proceed pseudonymously and whether his motion ends Noah Doe’s bid before any ruling on title.
