Bitcoin mining large MARA has filed a federal lawsuit looking for to dam a deliberate Nov. 4 native election in Hood County, Texas, alleging that county officers unlawfully positioned a municipal incorporation measure on the poll to focus on its knowledge heart operations.
This text is from Theminermag, a commerce publication for the cryptocurrency mining trade, specializing in the most recent information and analysis on institutional bitcoin mining corporations.
Within the 47-page grievance filed on Oct. 27 within the U.S. District Court docket for the Northern District of Texas, MARA accuses Hood County, County Decide Ron Massingill, County Lawyer Matt Mills, and Elections Administrator Stephanie Cooper of “intentional and unconstitutional” conduct in approving a poll initiative to create a brand new municipality known as Mitchell Bend round MARA’s mining facility close to Granbury.
MARA claims the proposed city boundaries have been “drawn simply to encircle” its website, giving native residents regulatory energy to “tax and regulate it out of enterprise.” The corporate argues the county violated a number of provisions of the Texas Native Authorities Code governing municipal incorporations, together with necessities on inhabitants, boundaries, and pre-existing neighborhood standing.
The dispute stems from neighborhood opposition to the large-scale air-cooled bitcoin mining facility, which MARA acquired in early 2024. The corporate started mitigating noise final summer season by transitioning to immersion cooling expertise, which submerges mining machines in liquid coolant to dampen sound.
On the time, MARA stated it had put in a 24-foot acoustical wall, moved fan-cooled items farther from properties, and anticipated the brand new immersion containers to be absolutely deployed by yr’s finish. Regardless of these steps, tensions persevered. Residents, organized below a bunch known as Residents Involved About Wolf Hole and represented by the environmental regulation agency Earthjustice, sued the corporate in 2024 for personal nuisance however later misplaced a associated noise case in county courtroom.
The brand new lawsuit claims that Hood County Decide Ron Massingill, County Lawyer Matt Mills, and Elections Administrator Stephanie Cooper labored with the identical group to fast-track the incorporation measure earlier than the August poll deadline. Inner emails cited within the submitting present officers acknowledging defects within the petition—comparable to inconsistent metropolis names and lacking boundary maps—whereas pushing it by regardless.
“The county isn’t going to invalidate the petition at the moment,” Mills wrote in an Oct. 3 e mail quoted within the grievance. “The courts are open for a submitting for an injunction.”
Marathon argues that the incorporation effort has “no authentic municipal function” and was as a substitute designed to “regulate and tax the corporate out of existence.”
The case, MARA Holdings, Inc. et al. v. Hood County, Texas et al., is docketed as No. 4:25-cv-1202 within the Northern District of Texas, Fort Value Division.
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