Bitcoin Wallet Dormant Since 2011 Moves 75 Coins in Lawsuit Targeting 3.8 Million
Key Facts
An early Bitcoin wallet moved 75 BTC it had held since 2011 in a Thursday transaction that brought the address back to activity, according to a CoinDesk report published on November 13, 2026. The transfer comes amid a New York lawsuit targeting coins spread across tens of thousands of addresses, with the wallet listed in the amended complaint as defendant No. 3,419. In May, it received a small payment carrying a legal notice related to the case. The transaction shows that someone was able to spend the coins, but does not identify who controls the wallet. Nor does it establish that the lawsuit prompted the transfer.
On May 22, 546 satoshis were sent to the address, worth less than 40 cents at the recent prices cited by the report. The transaction carried the phrase "Legal Notice by Order of the Court," along with a link to a page containing the notice. The payment was part of a method authorized by the court to notify owners of anonymous addresses: sending small amounts of bitcoin with messages and links to legal filings. The notice thus reached the address directly through an on-chain transaction. Months later, the notice payment was spent along with the coins already in the wallet, but the sequence of the two transactions does not establish why the later transfer occurred.
Thursday's transaction combined six inputs in one batch, spending the original 75 BTC alongside the notice payment and three other small deposits, according to CoinDesk. It emptied the old address, moving its balance to a new one. The spending therefore included coins that had remained there since 2011, as well as the small amounts received later. The spending details show that the coins were technically movable, but do not reveal who used the ability to spend them. They also do not show whether the owner acted in response to the notice or for another reason. The transferred coins remained at the new address as of Friday evening, according to the report.
The lawsuit asks a New York court to declare the plaintiffs owners of bitcoin held in 39,069 addresses. Its legal theory is that wallets dormant for at least 5 years contain lost property that can be claimed under state law. The case targets about 3.8 million BTC and includes coins attributed to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, according to CoinDesk. The report describes the address that moved as an early Bitcoin wallet and does not establish that Satoshi owned or controlled it. The defendants include owners of anonymous addresses, and the small payments were used to deliver notice to them. According to the complaint, an expert retained by the plaintiffs valued the "discovered" wallets at less than $10 because of uncertainty over whether their contents could be recovered.
In an analysis dated May 25, 2026, Galaxy Research said the 39,069 addresses contained 3,799,629 BTC, which it valued at about $293.5 billion at a price of $77,245 per coin. These figures estimate the size of the address set on that date, while the CoinDesk report says the lawsuit targets about 3.8 million BTC. Galaxy also said the on-chain notices were sent in 98 batched transactions across Bitcoin blocks 950,446 to 950,576 on May 21 and 22. Those transactions, Galaxy's verification found, covered all 39,069 addresses, with none missing. Each payment used the same message and a uniform amount of 546 satoshis. These details place the May payment sent to the wallet within a broader notice operation covering the addresses targeted by the lawsuit.
A potential ruling in the lawsuit would not by itself give the plaintiffs the technical ability to deal with the coins; even if they win, it would not give them the private keys needed to spend the bitcoin, according to the report. That means a court decision on the ownership claim is separate from possession of the keys that control the addresses. Thursday's movement transferred the balance to a new address and showed that the coins could be spent, without identifying the person who made the transaction. It remains unclear whether the legal notice prompted the move. The report said the coins remained at the new address as of Friday evening. It gave no specific date for a subsequent court action or another movement of the coins.