Because no one knows who owns the wallets, the court allowed the plaintiffs to notify them in an unusual way, by sending each address a minuscule amount of bitcoin carrying a message that linked to the legal papers.
The wallet that came to life on Thursday was listed as defendant No. 3,419 in the amended complaint. The transfer does not reveal who controls it. But it complicates the lawsuit’s central premise — which is that the money had been abandoned.
What the wallet received
On May 22, this address received 546 satoshis, worth less than 40 cents at recent prices, through a transaction carrying the message “COURT-ORDERED LEGAL NOTICE” and a link to the plaintiffs’ notice page. A satoshi is one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin.
Thursday’s transfer spent that payment alongside the original 75 $BTC and three other tiny deposits. One carried a separate July 2025 owner notice from Salomon Brothers Strategic Advisors, the consultant the plaintiffs hired to contact wallet holders.
Those small payments arrive separately from the original coins. The transaction combined all six into one payment, leaving the old address empty.
Other addresses named in the lawsuit have also moved. CoinDesk reported in June that a listed wallet holding 35.55 $BTC since 2011 had spent 15 $BTC and returned the remainder to itself as change.
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