13-year-old Bitcoin wallet moves $33.4M amid Noah Doe case

A long-neglected Bitcoin wallet sent 411.45 BTC, valued at around $33.4 million, just yesterday. This wallet is among 39,069 neglected wallets that a New York lawsuit is trying to classify as abandoned property. However, a recent transaction from this wallet runs counter to that classification.

The wallet woke up after 13 years of silence

According to Galaxy Research, the 13Coop address, which was first funded on September 11, 2013, had never made a transaction of any kind before now. The Arkham data also reveals that the 411.45 BTC moved into one single new address and is still sitting there.

The individual controlling the wallet holds a massive paper profit at his disposal. According to Galaxy Research, the cost basis for this particular address stands at close to $127 per BTC. This implies that the total amount would have been around $54,000 back in time when the BTC price hovered around $130. This results in an unrealized gain of over 64,000% after over a decade, according to the report. Bitcoin price remained marginally up over the last 24 hours. BTC traded at an average price of $81,915 at the press time.

The destination, on the other hand, does not reveal anything about the intentions of the wallet holder. The BTC has been transferred to an unnamed wallet as opposed to an exchange.

Why the “Noah Doe” lawsuit matters here

Galaxy classified the sending wallet as “Noah Doe #970.” This wallet classification is linked to a case initiated this year in New York by a pseudonymous plaintiff known as Noah Doe and two Wyoming-based corporations.

The plaintiffs claim that the “dormant” wallets listed in the suit, with a collective balance of nearly 3.8 million BTC, are considered abandoned property according to New York’s finders’ law. The twist in this case, as pointed out by all three sources, is that none of the wallets in the lawsuit belong to the plaintiffs, who don’t own the private keys.

This loophole is precisely what makes the transaction significant because moving the coins requires private keys. Activation of these dormant addresses is detrimental to the lawsuit as it proves that some of the wallets mentioned in the lawsuit are actively controlled by their owners. Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s research director, said the number of “Noah Doe” wallets on-chain continues to increase each month.

A dusting campaign and a wave of old coins moving

Galaxy pointed out that the “13Coop” address was among those targeted by a dusting attack in 2025 when small amounts of Bitcoin that contain embedded messages were sent to abandoned wallets. According to Galaxy, this was preparation for the abandonment claim. There have been a number of these transactions at Arkham, some labeled as phishing attacks.

This transaction is just another part of an ongoing trend involving the awakening of extremely old Bitcoin. A wallet that dates back to the Satoshi era, with Bitcoin mined in 2010, made its first move in 16 years, according to Galaxy, a little over a week ago. About $161 million in 10-year-old Bitcoin changed hands in about two weeks in late September, while another whale transferred $377 million last week despite being in possession of this Bitcoin through all major crashes of 2020.

Each of these transactions undermines the legal claim behind the Noah Doe lawsuit, as each transaction proves the wallet behind it was never really lost.