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NewRays, a Bitcoin mining firm, has filed a lawsuit, pointing fingers at both a judge and a prosecutor, accusing them of singling out the company over noise. In the complaint, NewRays alleges that despite other firms in the area making louder ruckus, noise laws were aimed squarely at their mining facility.

The complaint, filed on September 26, names Judge Allen Dodson and Prosecutor Phil Murphy as key players in this alleged crackdown. According to NewRays, the local authorities unfairly crafted new noise ordinances to specifically take a swipe at the mining firm’s operations.

Noise Ordinances Target Bitcoin Miners?

NewRays grabbed up property in Arkansas in October 2022 to start setting up a massive crypto mining data center. But things went south when noise ordinances popped up out of nowhere, and the firm felt the heat. The company says these rules were cooked up just to mess with them, and not a single other business was affected.

The lawsuit states, “Ordinance 23-20 was intended to apply only to NewRays, and no other person or entity,” even though there were other commercial sites producing way more noise. The problem kicked off when local residents began griping about the humming sound coming from NewRays’ mining rigs. According to reports from KATV, the nearby property value took a nosedive, and nobody wanted to buy land close to the mining center because of the non-stop noise.

Crypto Mining Noise: An Ongoing Battle

NewRays isn’t alone in this saga. Marathon Digital, another Bitcoin mining giant, faced a noise-related legal storm in Texas not long ago. Neighbors there were also losing their minds, blaming the company’s loud mining fans for everything from headaches to vertigo. A jury, though, cleared Marathon’s site manager of all charges.

But NewRays’ complaint digs deeper. It claims Faulkner County tried to push through a law specifically aimed at crypto mining firms. That effort fizzled out when not enough people showed up at the meeting.

Justin Daniels, co-chair of a top-tier law firm’s blockchain practice, chimed in on the lawsuit. He said, “Bitcoin mining gets a lot of heat for its energy use, but data centers for AI do the same, and no one’s complaining.”