Y.S. v. John Doe et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the District of Colorado grants in part and denies in part the plaintiff’s amended motion for expedited discovery in a cryptocurrency theft action involving unidentified defendants. The court permits subpoenas to Coinbase, Binance, and Foris for limited identifying information, including names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and IP addresses. The court denies requests for broader account and transaction information and declines to prohibit the subpoenaed entities from disclosing the subpoenas.

Holdings

1. Plaintiff established good cause for expedited discovery because he could not identify the defendants and the proposed third parties were likely to possess information that could reveal their identities.
2. The court permitted plaintiff to serve subpoenas on Coinbase, Binance, and Foris, but limited the subpoenas to the defendants' names, current and permanent addresses, billing addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and IP addresses.
3. The court denied plaintiff's request to prohibit Coinbase, Binance, and Foris from disclosing the subpoenas to the defendants.

Questions Presented

1. Whether plaintiff established good cause for expedited discovery to identify unknown defendants.
2. Whether plaintiff's proposed discovery was sufficiently narrow in scope to be permitted before the parties' Rule 26(f) conference.
3. Whether the court should prohibit the subpoenaed nonparties from disclosing the existence of the subpoenas to the defendants.

Disposition

other