3/7/24 Roundup: New All-Time High, Briefly

Perhaps it is a surprise to realize that bitcoin has surpassed such a currency as the Swiss franc, long treated as a safe haven and one of the strongest fiat currencies in the world, in market value.

But consider that Bitcoin has 51 million users (as measured by addresses with a non-zero balance), while the Swiss population stands at about 9 million. Or that the value settled on Bitcoin in 2023 was $1.4 trillion (down from $4.1 trillion in 2022), while the GDP of Switzerland was $825 billion.

Viewed through this lens, perhaps the most surprising aspect of bitcoin flipping the Swiss franc in market cap is that it has taken as long as it has.

Domestic bitcoin miners were granted a restraining order by a judge in their lawsuit to stop the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA, an arm of the Department of Energy) from exercising an emergency authorization to collect data on the energy usage of companies operating in the space.

After the EIA’s emergency survey was issued on January 31st, the government agency was sued by the Texas Blockchain Council and bitcoin miner Riot Platforms, who argued that the survey violated the Paperwork Reduction Act and that some of the information requested was competitively sensitive.

Following the court battle, the EIA has discontinued their collection of data under the emergency authorization and has said it will destroy all information that has already been collected. Instead, the EIA will publish in the Federal Register a new notice of proposed data collection with a 60 day comment period.

The court win comes as a brief respite for the industry as fears over the politicizing of energy use for bitcoin mining and AI data centers have begun to seep into the discourse in the wake of the EIA’s overreach.