An energy company’s attempt to set up a Bitcoin mine against a landowner’s wishes on land it leased for extracting natural gas has been quashed at the Court of King’s Bench. 

In a March 10 decision, Justice Christopher A. Rickards ruled that Persist Oil and Gas violated the terms of its lease with plaintiff Roy Flowers, who’s owned the land since 2012, ordering the company to shut the mine down.

The company’s name might sound familiar. In May 2020, the Progress Report reported that the Alberta Energy Regulator permitted Persist to purchase assets from Manitok Energy, a bankrupt company owned by Persist director and president Mass Geremia, while leaving behind Manitok’s estimated $72 million in orphaned wells and six-figure unpaid tax bill with Kneehill County. 

The following year, Persist brought gas generators and computers to the site of its gas processing facility on Flowers’ land in Rockyview County to power a Bitcoin mine. 

Soon after Flowers wrote to Persist asking the company to cease the mining operation, the company brought additional generators onto the site to expand its Bitcoin mining capacity.

Persist Energy was ordered to stop mining Bitcoin on land it had leased for processing natural gas. (Flickr)

Nigel Bankes, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Calgary, told the Report that Persist’s conduct in this case represents a “Wild West approach” towards crypto mining. 

“Some of these Bitcoin operators are just playing fast and loose,” said Bankes. “They're cutting corners. They are acting as if there is little or no regulation, and just getting on with it.”

During pre-trial cross-examination, Geremia admitted he didn’t obtain the appropriate regulatory permits for Bitcoin mining from the Alberta Utilities Commission, the Land and Property Rights Tribunal or Rocky View County. 

In January 2025, Flowers informed Rocky View County that Persist was operating an unlicensed Bitcoin mine on his property. 

A few weeks later, the county issued Flowers a Bylaw Compliance Notice ordering him to obtain the necessary zoning changes and development permits required for the Bitcoin mine on his property or face enforcement action from the county.

While the county’s decision to go after Flowers, rather than Persist, “does sound a little harsh,” said Bankes, it created the sense of urgency that allowed Justice Rickards to order an injunction to shut it down. 

The lease permitted Persist to use Flowers’ land for “any and all purposes and uses as may be necessary for the exploration, development and production of oil, gas, related hydrocarbons or substances produced in association therewith, including the right to lay a pipeline or pipelines, construct and operate a sweet natural gas compressor facility, remediation and reclamation.”

But Justice Rickards ruled that Bitcoin mining isn’t a necessary purpose for exploring, developing or producing natural gas. 

“If that were the case, then everything which might allow Persist to make a profit from its natural gas while natural gas prices were low would also be permissible uses,” Rickards said.

The judge likened the Bitcoin mine to Persist deciding to open a cannabis growing operation on the land in question, “as it would involve Persist using its natural gas to produce the electricity to run the cannabis grow operation and make profits therefrom and to continue producing natural gas when natural gas prices were low or there were other impediments to its production.”

The judge’s decision, Bankes explained, is rooted in a key distinction between “producing the commodity and what you do with the commodity.” 

“You can't engage in a secondary production activity,” he said. “When you're doing it principally to produce another product, i.e. electricity, then it seems to me, you've gone beyond the terms of your authorization.” 

Since Persist’s lease with Flowers expired in November 2019, Flowers also argued that the company was trespassing on his property, which the judge rejected, noting that under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, a lease cannot be terminated until the land is reclaimed. 

The issue, Rickards ruled, isn’t whether Persist has a right to be on Flowers’s land, but whether it was using the land in a way that violated the terms of the lease. 

“Trespass is concerned with the original entry onto the property,” explained Bankes.

“Think about a shopping mall. If you [enter a] covenant to sell only x, and you then engage in another business, you don't become a trespasser, you're just in breach of your lease.”