A Bitcoin wallet that had sat untouched for 13 years has moved its coins after being named in a lawsuit that claims it was abandoned.
On Sunday, the address sent 411.45 BTC, worth about $33.4 million, in block 972,036, according to Galaxy Research. It was the first time the wallet had ever sent coins.
Galaxy Research flagged the move on X, describing the address as awakened after more than 13 years.
The wallet
The address, which begins with “13Coop”, was first funded on 11 September 2013. Bitcoin traded at around $130 at the time, according to Arkham, meaning the coins originally cost about $54,000.
The coins were sent to a single new address with no label, not to an exchange, and remained there at the time of writing, according to Arkham. Who controls the wallet, and whether they plan to sell, is unknown.
The Noah Doe lawsuit
Galaxy Research has tagged the address as “Noah Doe #970”. It is one of 39,069 dormant addresses named in a lawsuit filed in New York this year by a pseudonymous plaintiff, Noah Doe, and two Wyoming companies.
Together, the named wallets hold about 3.8 million BTC.
The plaintiffs argue that these dormant wallets count as abandoned property under the state’s lost-and-found law, even though the plaintiffs do not hold any of the private keys. The claim has not been tested in court.
Why moving the coins matters
A wallet moving its coins suggests someone still holds the private keys, which cuts against the argument that the Bitcoin has been abandoned.
Galaxy also flagged that this address was among those sent tiny “dust” transactions with embedded messages in a 2025 campaign. Galaxy describes that campaign as groundwork for the abandonment claim. Arkham data labels some of those deposits as phishing.
Galaxy head of research Alex Thorn has said that dormant coins named in the case are moving onchain at a faster pace month by month.
What happens next
The open questions are whether more named wallets wake up, and how the court treats named wallets that have since moved their coins.
