Texas Governor Greg Abbott's statewide halt on new data center development approvals is delaying prospective Bitcoin mining, AI and cloud facilities while the Electric Reliability Council of Texas audits electricity demand and grid requirements. Existing permitted facilities and projects with interconnection agreements are not the reported target, but operators seeking fresh state approvals face delays. As the policy highlighted power constraints facing artificial intelligence infrastructure, AI and big data tokens rose about 4.7% to roughly $25 billion on Tuesday, outperforming Bitcoin, which gained less than 1%, and Ethereum, which finished flat. NEAR Protocol rose about 7.6%, Bittensor about 8%, and all 10 largest AI tokens advanced over seven days, although reported seven-day gains for NEAR differed between about 87% and more than 90%. Reuters reported on September 22, 2026, that the Texas freeze had no stated end date, despite Abbott's September 21 directive saying ERCOT expected to complete its audit by December.