In a case where the presiding judge previously expressed apprehension over entering a ruling and setting a “moving target precedent,” a federal district court in the Northern District of Texas denied on Thursday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for a default judgment against a cryptocurrency mining firm.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, who presides over the action in the Northern District of Texas involving the SEC against defendants Geosyn Mining LLC and its co-founders Jeremy McNutt and Caleb Ward, held that default judgments are drastic remedies not favored by the federal rules and “resorted to by courts only in extreme situations.”