US energy officials agree to ‘destroy’ all data from crypto mining survey

United States energy officials have reached an agreement with the Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Bitcoin mining firm Riot Platforms to halt its proposed emergency survey aimed at crypto miners nationwide.

According to a March 2 filing, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have reached a settlement with the TBC and Riot. They have agreed to discontinue gathering information from crypto miners for the proposed three-year emergency survey filed under the “EIA-862 Emergency Collection Request.”

Disposal of Collected Data

The filing further states that all data previously collected from crypto miners for the survey, which the TBC and Riot deemed intrusive, will be deleted. Additionally, any forthcoming data will also be discarded. This settlement effectively cancels the temporary restraining order, originally scheduled until March 8.

Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 23 that the court had temporarily suspended the U.S. energy regulators from collecting data while the lawsuit was ongoing. This decision came after the TBC and Riot convinced the judge that irreversible harm would occur without halting further data collection.

The plaintiffs argued that the survey posed potential damages, including non-recoverable costs of compliance, a credible threat of prosecution for non-compliance, and the disclosure of proprietary information. The EIA’s estimation that the survey would take around 30 minutes to complete was deemed “extremely inaccurate” by the court.

Challenge to Compliance Estimate

The TBC and Riot challenged the estimate, stating that the cost of compliance thus far has exceeded 40 hours. However, both parties agreed that the EIA can issue a new notice seeking public feedback for two months on the information it is permitted to collect.

According to the filing, “Defendants agree that EIA will allow for submission of comments for 60 days, beginning on the date of publication of the New Federal Register Notice.”