story // 3 dispatches over 104 days

The court story

From mar 24 to jul 6. It travelled bitcoin→policy. Every dispatch below uses at least one of its words: “court”.

1. mar 24
   Brooklyn Court Orders DOJ to Account for 127,271 Bitcoin

   In October 2025, the DOJ announced the largest asset seizure in US history: 127,271 Bitcoin worth $15 billion, taken from the alleged criminal empire of Prince Group founder Chen Zhi. On March 24, Bloomberg reported that a Brooklyn federal court is now pressing prosecutors on a question they have refused to answer since the announcement: how, exactly, did the US government obtain this Bitcoin? The answer matters for pig butchering victims, for civil forfeiture precedent, and for anyone who thinks government custody means victims get their money back.

   “court”

2. jun 9
   NY Court Halts Bid for 39,069 Dormant Bitcoin Wallets

   On June 5, a New York Supreme Court judge stayed a lawsuit filed by a pseudonymous plaintiff who claims that 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets holding approximately 3.7 million BTC are legally abandoned property under New York's lost-and-found statute and that he owns them. On June 6, a 2011-era wallet listed in the case moved 47 BTC after 15 years of dormancy, undercutting the abandonment theory in real time. Attorney Ian R. Cohen's amicus brief invoked 'not your keys, not your coins' as a legal proposition. A July 14 hearing will decide whether New York's century-old lost-property statute can reach a public blockchain.

   “court”

3. jul 6
   A Bitcoin Holder Is Fighting a New York Lawsuit That Calls His Dormant Coins 'Lost Property'

   A pseudonymous Bitcoin holder calling himself 'John Doe 33' filed the first wallet-holder motion to dismiss a New York lawsuit that seeks court-ordered ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses, worth an estimated $234 billion, under a decades-old lost-property statute. The case has already drawn a rebuttal from the blockchain itself: Galaxy Research says 52 of the named addresses have moved over 34,000 BTC since the suit was filed, including one wallet that sent coins on July 4 after 15 years of silence. It is a live test of whether a state court can call cryptographic dormancy abandonment, and a preview of the legal theories self-custodyself-custodyHolding your own bitcoin keys rather than trusting an exchange or custodian. The maxim: not your keys, not your coins. holders may eventually have to answer.

   “court”