Suit Seeks Title to 3.8M Dormant BTC as CLARITY Advances

Plaintiffs identified as Noah Doe and two related companies have filed a lawsuit invoking New York’s lost-and-found law seeking title to roughly 3.799 million Bitcoins held at 39,069 inactive addresses. The filing asks a court to recognize the claimants as owners of the coins.

The complaint cites an OP_RETURN message campaign, a press release, a public claim window and police reports as efforts to notify possible owners. The plaintiffs point to long periods of inactivity at the addresses and rely on New York Personal Property Law, including Article 7-B and Section 257, which allow title to vest in a finder under specified conditions. The coins cited equal about 18% of Bitcoin’s total supply.

A July 22 draft of the CLARITY Act includes Section 20216, which would state that a self-custodied digital asset cannot become abandoned, unclaimed, forfeited, subject to adverse possession or subject to finder’s title solely because the owner has not moved it or otherwise shown continued interest. The draft defines a self-custodied asset as one where the owner retains exclusive control of the private keys without relying on a custodian, exchange or intermediary.

The CLARITY draft preserves state unclaimed-property rules for custodial holdings. Assets held by exchanges, brokers or custodians would remain subject to state dormancy reporting and escheat laws, creating a legal distinction between coins controlled directly via private keys and coins held with intermediaries.

Section 20216 would preempt state and local laws that treat years of wallet inactivity alone as grounds for transferring ownership. The draft would not, however, bar claims supported by other evidence. The plaintiffs’ filing includes notices, police reports and contact attempts, items a court could consider in evaluating competing ownership or allegations of theft or fraud.

The lawsuit remains pending while Congress considers the CLARITY draft. A court ruling on the Noah Doe case would address the factual and legal claims in the filing, and enacted federal language would affect whether state laws that treat long inactivity as abandonment apply to self-custodied assets as defined in the statute.