Latest development in the case "Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin Ownership Claim": still under review, lawyers request to avoid unilateral judgment

Odaily Planet Daily reports that Galaxy Digital research director Alex Thorn has released the latest developments in the lawsuit centered on “attempts to claim legal ownership of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto.” The case was brought by two anonymous Wyoming companies, seeking to have the court recognize that approximately 39,069 long-dormant Bitcoin addresses constitute “abandoned property,” thereby obtaining legal title to the relevant BTC. The assets involved are reportedly worth more than $200 billion, including some wallets believed to belong to the “Satoshi era”:

1. On May 29, Bitcoin attorney Ian R. Cohen filed a friend-of-the-court brief. The core arguments include: New York State abandoned property law does not apply to self-custodied Bitcoin; “dormant” does not equal “abandoned”; the court has no jurisdiction over private keys. He emphasized that in the Bitcoin system, “control of the private key equals ownership,” and without control of the private key, one cannot assert ownership of the assets.

2. On June 4, Judge Kathy King approved Cohen’s request for a hearing and issued a stay on the entire case, freezing subsequent proceedings before formal trial. This move effectively prevented the plaintiffs from obtaining a ruling via the “no response from defendant → default judgment” path.

3. On June 18, the plaintiffs’ attorney David Lin applied to revoke or narrow the stay, arguing that non-parties should not affect the case process, and that if the defendants do not appear, the friend-of-the-court brief is unnecessary.

4. On June 19, Cohen filed a forceful rebuttal, stating that the stay was originally ordered by the court itself, and that the “no response from defendant” issue is a structural problem in this case. The 39,069 addresses, as “defendants” themselves, cannot respond, so the court must rely on third-party briefs to avoid a unilateral judgment. He also further questioned the plaintiffs’ attempt to bypass the procedural threshold by using a $10 claim, while trying to advance an ownership determination that could involve thousands of billions of dollars in Bitcoin. He emphasized that on-chain data shows some addresses “marked as dormant” still transferred assets during the case period—at least 52 addresses have moved approximately 34,335 BTC (about $2.48 billion). Of those, 29 addresses continued to transfer approximately 12,302 BTC after “service,” weakening the core premise of “abandoned assets.”

Alex Thorn analyzed that the case is still in the trial stage. If a default judgment occurs, it could have far-reaching implications for the legal definition of self-custodied Bitcoin assets, and could trigger a long-running debate over whether “dormant addresses” are equivalent to ownerless assets.