Bitcoin address changes after being dormant for nearly 15 years, involved in New York's dormant Bitcoin ownership lawsuit
Comparing the news, a Bitcoin address that has been dormant for nearly 15 years recently made a transfer for the first time. It transferred out 30 BTC, worth about $1.88 million at current prices.
According to Galaxy Research's on-chain data, address 1KV47 has not transferred funds since receiving 30 BTC in August 2011, until last Saturday local time for the first time.
This address is one of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses involved in a lawsuit in New York. Plaintiff Noah Doe and two companies registered in Wyoming sought to claim ownership of bitcoins in these long-inactive addresses under the New York State Lost Property Law. Sani, founder of the analytics platform Timechain Index, said that this batch of addresses held a total of about 3.7 million BTC worth about $234 billion, including addresses widely believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto.
Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, said that the activity of dormant addresses related to the lawsuit has increased markedly recently. A total of 31 addresses transferred 17,527 BTC in June, while only 5 addresses transferred 4,834 BTC in February this year.
However, the legal community generally believes that the basis for this lawsuit is weak. Last Friday local time, John Doe 33, a defendant claiming to control one of the addresses, applied to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the Bitcoin address is only a string of data and is not a subject that can be prosecuted.
Edwin Mata, CEO and attorney of tokenization platform Brickken, said that an address alone cannot prove that an asset has been abandoned for a long time. According to property law, determining that property has been abandoned usually requires proof that the owner clearly intended to relinquish property rights, and the dormant address may simply be long-term cold storage, loss of private keys, or the holder chose to hold it for a long time, so it is insufficient to support the plaintiff's claim.
