§The Myth of Abandoned Bitcoin

Debates over the fate of Satoshi’s coins–and the broader universe of long‑dormant Bitcoin–have intensified with two recent proposals that challenge Bitcoin’s traditional neutrality toward ownership. The first is Paul Sztorc’s eCash proposal, which would hard‑fork Bitcoin and redistribute balances associated with Satoshi‑linked addresses. The second is BIP‑361, a proposal to “lock” dormant coins unless their owners periodically prove control, ostensibly to protect them from future quantum‑computing attacks. These proposals raise profound questions about property rights, abandonment, and the limits of protocol‑level intervention–questions that common‑law doctrine has grappled with for centuries, but which Bitcoin’s borderless, jurisdiction‑agnostic nature complicates in unprecedented ways.

§What Dormancy Really Means

Under the common law, the classification of found property turns entirely on the owner’s intent. Courts distinguish lost, mislaid, and abandoned property based on whether the owner unintentionally parted with possession, intentionally placed the property and forgot it, or intentionally relinquished all rights. As courts have repeatedly emphasized, “the mere lapse of time, without more, is insufficient to establish abandonment” (Morrison v. United States, 203 Ct.Cl. 692 (1974)). Abandonment requires a voluntary act and a clear intention “of terminating ownership and not reclaiming any future rights therein” (State v. Green, 456 So.2d 1309 (Fla.1984)). Dormancy alone–whether ten years or a hundred–does not satisfy this standard. This is why courts routinely classify carefully concealed property as mislaid rather than abandoned, recognizing that intentional placement implies an expectation of return (Benjamin v. Lindner Aviation, Inc., 534 N.W.2d 400 (Iowa 1995)).

§Why Satoshi’s Coins Still Belong to Satoshi

Applying these principles to Bitcoin reveals a fundamental mismatch between traditional property doctrine and cryptographic assets. An unspent transaction output (“UTXO”) untouched since 2009 does not reveal whether the owner lost the key, died, deliberately chose not to move the coins, or simply prefers silence. Under common‑law reasoning, none of these scenarios constitute abandonment. As one court put it, “the adage ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ does not represent an accurate statement of the common law” (State v. Green, 456 So.2d 1309 (Fla. 1984)). Bitcoin’s transparency shows inactivity, not intent. And because possession is defined solely by control of a private key, no one can “find” Bitcoin in the common‑law sense; one either has the key or does not. Thus, Satoshi’s coins–and all dormant coins–remain owned property, not abandoned assets.

§Forking Reality: The eCash Approach

Paul Sztorc’s eCash proposal operates outside Bitcoin by creating a new chain with new rules. It copies Bitcoin’s blockchain and then selectively reassigns balances, reducing or eliminating mirrored balances for Satoshi‑linked addresses. Legally, this is not theft of Bitcoin. A forked chain is a new asset, and altering balances on that chain does not deprive anyone of property on Bitcoin. The common law recognizes that ownership attaches to the actual property, not to derivative representations. Yet the proposal raises ethical concerns because it breaks Bitcoin’s norm of equal treatment of all addresses. It resembles the mislaid‑property doctrine only superficially: the eCash chain is not adjudicating ownership but redefining it for its own ecosystem. While legally permissible, it challenges Bitcoin’s cultural commitment to neutrality and non‑discrimination among UTXOs.

§BIP-361 and the Push to Lock Coins

BIP‑361, by contrast, attempts to modify Bitcoin itself. The proposal would “lock” coins that have not moved for a long period unless the owner signs a message proving control before a deadline. The stated purpose is to protect dormant coins from future quantum attacks. But this approach conflicts sharply with common‑law principles. Under the common law, owners of mislaid or lost property retain rights indefinitely; the law does not impose periodic proof‑of‑ownership requirements. A house does not become public property because the owner has not visited it. A bank account does not become abandoned because the owner has not logged in. Courts have consistently held that “the mere lapse of time does not establish the intent to abandon” (Morrison, supra). BIP‑361 would invert this principle by presuming abandonment–or at least vulnerability–unless the owner periodically reasserts control. This is a profound departure from both legal tradition and Bitcoin’s ethos of self‑sovereignty.

§Quantum Panic vs. Property Rights

The quantum‑computing justification does not change the legal analysis. If quantum computers eventually break ECDSA, cracking a private key would not constitute “finding” abandoned property. It would be the digital equivalent of breaking into a locked safe. Courts treat such conduct as theft or conversion, not as acquisition of abandoned property. Many states even criminalize the failure to return or report lost or mislaid property, holding that a finder who retains such property without reasonable efforts to locate the owner commits theft (Commonwealth v. Griffith, 305 A.3d 573 (2023)). Quantum cracking would be even more clearly wrongful: a deliberate act to seize property without consent.

§Bitcoin Beyond Borders

All of this becomes even more complex when considering Bitcoin’s global, jurisdiction‑agnostic nature. Bitcoin is not subject to any single legal system. It exists simultaneously inside and outside all jurisdictions. While U.S. common‑law principles provide a useful analytical framework, they do not bind Bitcoin users in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Latin America. Nor can any government impose a global rule about abandonment, mislaid property, or quantum‑era protections. Bitcoin’s borderlessness means that no single legal tradition can dictate how dormant coins should be treated. Instead, the network’s consensus rules–voluntarily adopted by participants worldwide–serve as the functional equivalent of a transnational property regime. In this sense, Bitcoin resembles the “law of the sea” more than the law of any nation: a domain where local doctrines may inform interpretation but cannot compel compliance.

§Consensus as the Final Court

The tension between these proposals and established property principles highlights a deeper truth: Bitcoin’s protocol is the ultimate arbiter of ownership, not courts, legislatures, or forks. Satoshi’s coins remain owned because the protocol says they are spendable only by whoever controls the keys. Forks like eCash can create alternative realities, but they cannot alter Bitcoin’s. Proposals like BIP‑361 can attempt to redefine ownership conditions, but doing so risks undermining the very property‑rights stability that both the common law and Bitcoin’s original design seek to preserve.

In the end, the common‑law framework reinforces a simple conclusion: dormant Bitcoin is not abandoned. Lost keys do not extinguish ownership. Forks cannot seize what they do not control. And consensus changes that impose new burdens on owners contradict both legal tradition and Bitcoin’s foundational principles. In a borderless system where no government has authority, the only legitimate path forward is one that respects the protocol’s existing guarantees: that property remains property, even when silent, and that ownership is defined by keys, not by time, speculation, or fear of the quantum future.

§The Real Solution: Treat Theft as Theft

Ultimately, the answer is not to pre‑emptively rewrite Bitcoin’s property model in the name of protection, but to recognize that unauthorized spending is a legal wrong, not a protocol puzzle. Bitcoin’s consensus rules determine spendability, not legitimacy; the law determines theft, not the blockchain. Trying to “fix” theft by altering ownership conditions only creates new victims–rightful owners whose property is restricted or redefined without their consent. In a borderless system where no government can dictate the rules, the only stable foundation is the one Bitcoin already provides: keys define control, and any violation of that control is a matter for human institutions to address. The protocol should remain neutral, predictable, and blind to circumstance, because the moment Bitcoin tries to enforce justice, it stops being Bitcoin.