US energy officials commit to eradicating all data collected from survey on crypto mining

The Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Bitcoin mining firm Riot Platforms have reached an agreement with United States energy officials to halt their proposed emergency survey targeting crypto miners across the country. The U.S. Department of Energy, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have settled with the TBC and Riot to cease gathering information from crypto miners for their proposed three-year emergency survey. All previously collected data from crypto miners will be deleted, and any future data will also be discarded. The settlement effectively cancels the temporary restraining order that was in place until March 8. The court had temporarily suspended the U.S. energy regulators from collecting data while the lawsuit was ongoing, as the TBC and Riot argued that further data collection would cause irreversible harm. The plaintiffs claimed that the survey could result in non-recoverable compliance costs, a threat of prosecution for non-compliance, and the disclosure of proprietary information. The court deemed the EIA’s estimation of the survey taking 30 minutes to complete as “extremely inaccurate,” and the TBC and Riot stated that the cost of compliance had already exceeded 40 hours. However, both parties agreed that the EIA can issue a new notice for public feedback on the information it is permitted to collect.