Attorney Ian R. Cohen has filed a court rebuttal opposing efforts to revive a lawsuit that seeks control of roughly 3.8 million Bitcoin worth an estimated $238 billion. The lawsuit targets wallets linked to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, among others. Cohen’s filing pushes back against attempts by plaintiffs’ attorney David Lin to overturn a court-ordered stay in a New York case involving 39,069 Bitcoin wallet addresses.
## Background on the Case
The lawsuit was brought by anonymous plaintiffs who argue that the wallets should be treated as abandoned property under New York law.
However, Cohen has repeatedly challenged the legal basis of the case, arguing that New York's lost-property laws do not apply to self-custodied Bitcoin and that inactivity alone does not establish abandonment.
The court granted a stay earlier this month after Cohen sought permission to participate in the case as amicus counsel.
A hearing related to the amicus application has been scheduled for July 14.
Cohen argued in his latest filing that the stay was issued by the court itself after reviewing the matter and was not simply granted at his request.
## Disputing the Practicality of the Lawsuit
Cohen's filing also disputes the practicality of the lawsuit, arguing that the defendants are not identifiable individuals but 39,069 pseudonymous Bitcoin addresses.
This makes it unlikely that the affected parties would appear in court to defend their interests.
The filing argues that lifting the stay could allow plaintiffs to secure a default judgment against the wallet addresses without meaningful opposition, potentially affecting property rights tied to billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.
## Challenging the Abandonment Argument
Cohen challenged the factual foundation of the abandonment argument by pointing to evidence that some of the targeted wallets have recently been active on-chain.
According to the filing, the complaint itself identified addresses that recorded outbound transactions, indicating that someone with access to the associated private keys had moved funds.
## Industry Criticism
Criticism of the case has emerged elsewhere in the crypto industry, with Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz questioning how a New York court could assert authority over Bitcoin wallets whose owners are unknown and scattered across a decentralized network.
The debate has drawn comparisons to future discussions about dormant Bitcoin holdings, with Binance founder Changpeng Zhao suggesting that wallets linked to inactive owners could one day be frozen after a transition to quantum-resistant cryptographyBased on reporting from crypto.news.
