THE FEDS SEIZED 925.94 BITCOIN FROM BTC-E IN 2017 — ONE ADDRESS FILLED FROM BACKUP WALLET COPIES TOOK 929.5 — A USER NOTIFIED OCT. 12, 2026 HAS UNTIL NOV. 16 TO CLAIM IN COURT

A notice dated October 12, 2026 went to a former BTC-e user by email. It says a verified claim must be filed no later than November 16, 2026, in federal court in Washington. That’s 35 days, the same window the government gave a notice sent September 7, which made claims due October 12. Coindoo reported in September that a judge’s August 13 order cleared a new round of direct notice to about 300,000 email addresses tied to BTC-e accounts that had a balance when the exchange was shut down.

Here’s what the government actually got. It took BTC-e’s servers on July 25, 2017, and seized 925.93922019 bitcoin between August 2 and August 17. Its own complaint explains the gap: while agents worked to get the private keys, “remaining BTC-e operators still at large gained access to back-up copies of the wallets and transferred out the bulk of the funds.”

The complaint names one address that took 929.5 bitcoin from BTC-e’s wallets on July 31, 2017. We checked the chain. All 11 payments landed the same day, in blocks 478,427 to 478,453. The coins sat 144 days. Then 924.5 left on December 22, 2017, and the last 5 left on January 23, 2018. One address held 3.56077981 more bitcoin than the government seized in all.

Now look at the people who owned the balances. One claimant says BTC-e never sent him a statement and he can’t say how much he had: “The records establishing the balance of the Claimant’s Account are in the possession, custody, or control of the United States.” Another says he wired $4,000 in 2013 for seven bitcoin and found the case himself on June 8, 2026. A backup copy of the keys moved the coins. The owners got a 35-day deadline. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $80,681.