The Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Bitcoin mining firm Riot Platforms have successfully reached an agreement with energy officials in the United States to halt their proposed emergency survey targeting crypto miners nationwide. The U.S. Department of Energy, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) settled with TBC and Riot, agreeing to cease gathering information from crypto miners for their three-year emergency survey, known as “EIA-862 Emergency Collection Request.” All previously collected data from crypto miners will be deleted, and any future data will also be discarded. As a result, the temporary restraining order, which was originally set to remain in effect until March 8, has been effectively canceled. The court had initially suspended the U.S. energy regulators from collecting data while the lawsuit was ongoing, after TBC and Riot convinced the judge that irreparable harm would occur if further data collection continued. The plaintiffs argued that the survey presented potential damages, including non-recoverable costs of compliance, a credible threat of prosecution for non-compliance, and the disclosure of proprietary information. While the EIA estimated that the survey would take approximately 30 minutes to complete, the court deemed this estimate to be “extremely inaccurate.” TBC and Riot also disputed the estimate, claiming that the cost of compliance had already exceeded 40 hours. However, both parties have agreed that the EIA can issue a new notice to solicit public feedback for a period of two months regarding the information it is permitted to collect.
US energy officials to erase all data from crypto mining survey