Noah Doe Lawsuit Expands to 39,069 Bitcoin Addresses and Executes On-Chain Service
A New York lawsuit seeking ownership of dormant bitcoin expanded on May 1 to target 39,069 Bitcoin addresses, then used 98 Bitcoin transactions on May 21–22 to carry out court-authorized substituted service. The episode turned Bitcoin's public ledger itself into part of an unprecedented legal procedure over control of dormant coins.
On May 1, 2026, the plaintiffs in a New York Supreme Court lawsuit led by the pseudonymous “Noah Doe” filed a First Amended Complaint expanding their case from 1,332 defendants to John Does 1–39,069. The defendants were identified through Bitcoin addresses that the plaintiffs characterized as dormant. The plaintiffs sought declaratory ownership of the bitcoin associated with those addresses under a theory derived from New York lost-property law, even though they did not possess the private keys needed to spend the coins.
The May amendment was a distinct step from the original March 11 filing. It dramatically enlarged the address set and attached the full list of targeted Bitcoin addresses. The case was unusual not simply because of the amount of bitcoin implicated, but because it attempted to apply conventional property-law concepts to an asset whose practical control is determined cryptographically. A court declaration could establish legal rights between parties, but it could not itself generate the private-key signatures required by the Bitcoin network to move the coins.
The lawsuit then moved from pleading to service. On May 21 and 22, the plaintiffs executed court-authorized substituted service through 98 batch transactions recorded in Bitcoin blocks 950,446 through 950,576. The service records were followed by an affirmation of service containing transaction-verification material for the 39,069-address defendant set. In effect, the Bitcoin blockchain became part of the mechanism by which legal notice was delivered.
The combined May episode belongs in Bitcoin history because it joined two systems that normally operate independently: a state court asserting jurisdiction over property rights and a permissionless network whose ownership mechanism depends on possession of private keys. Later litigation would determine how far the plaintiffs' theory could proceed, but May 2026 already established the historically distinctive fact that a mass dormant-bitcoin ownership claim had expanded to tens of thousands of addresses and that the plaintiffs used on-chain transactions to execute service in the case.