Fight over Greenidge miner’s legal threats to activists over false’ claims

Greenidge Generation LLC, an upstate New York-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm has reportedly threatened legal action over repeated demonstrably false claims from local activists.

Greenidge mines BTC at its gas-fired power plant near the Seneca Lake in Dresden, and the firm has been locked in a long-running battle with activists who allege that the firms practices are damaging to the local environment.

Activists Yvonne Taylor and Abi Buddington claim that the Greenidge CEO Dale Irwin sent them threatening letters in response to their public pushback against the firm. The letters have since been shared publicly and refer to pursuing all legal remedies available if the activists continue to intentionally deceive the public by outright lying about our companys operations.

Taylor is the co-founder of the Seneca Lake Guardian environmentalist group, who has accused Greenidge of spewing greenhouse gases and putting millions of gallons of thermal pollution back into the Seneca Lake daily. Buddington has spoken out against the firm on multiple occasions, questioning its regulatory compliance and environmental impacts.

During an interview with Spectrum News 1s Capital Tonight on Oct. 27, Taylor was questioned on the nature of the legal threats. She claims that Greenidge had threatened to sue them if they didnt keep quiet earlier this month, and suggested that the letters were a part of a scare tactic.

Despite the fact that this has been extremely destabilizing, I fear for my safety,” Taylor told Capital Tonight:

“I fear for my familys safety. I feel that I am on the side of right and I do have a First Amendment right to freedom of speech.”

Greenidge responded to Taylors claims, arguing that its not pursuing legal action or preventing anyone from sharing their position. A Greenidge representative told Cointelegraph:

If youve read the letters they are referring to, you will see that there was absolutely no threat here. We sent respectful requests seeking an end to continued false public statements, across multiple platforms, regarding Greenidge and our team. We provided a detailed, point-by-point response to the inaccurate claims, as we have done in the past.

Related: New York businesses ask governor to deny permits for crypto mining

In both of the letters addressed to the activists, Greenidge refutes their claims by sharing its own operational data and environmental and regulatory compliance records.