Zcash Miner Fortitude Names Ex-Hut 8 CEO as Public Listing Lead

Fortitude Mining, a Zcash-focused cryptocurrency miner backed by Digital Currency Group, has named former Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton as its new chief executive as it moves toward going public. The leadership change comes alongside progress on a proposed merger with HeartSciences, which would take Fortitude to the Nasdaq subject to approval.

Leverton is set to succeed current CEO Andrea Childs on Sept. 21, with Childs transitioning to chief operating officer. The company says the transition reflects its evolution from a private mining operator into a vertically integrated platform preparing for a public-market listing.

Key takeaways

• Jaime Leverton will become Fortitude Mining’s CEO on Sept. 21, replacing Andrea Childs, who will shift to chief operating officer.
• Fortitude has mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026, representing about 28% of total Zcash network output for the period.
• The firm reported $20.9 million in revenue for Q2 and operates 60+ megawatts of power capacity across seven US sites.
• Under a planned merger with HeartSciences, Fortitude is expected to combine and trade on Nasdaq under the ticker TUDE, pending approval.
• ZEC has rallied sharply recently, supported by disclosures from Paradigm about its ZEC holdings and investment in Zcash development efforts.

Executive transition as the miner readies for a public listing

Fortitude Mining’s management reshuffle is closely tied to its wider strategic path. Earlier this year, the company announced a proposed combination with HeartSciences, with the transaction currently expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. If completed, the combined business is anticipated to list on Nasdaq under the ticker TUDE, subject to regulatory and corporate approvals.

The CEO handoff also signals continuity in execution. Leverton previously served as CEO of Hut 8, where she oversaw the Bitcoin miner’s merger with US Bitcoin Corp. and its move toward becoming a US-domiciled, Nasdaq-listed company. That background matters in this context: miners that pursue public-market access often need to translate operating metrics—such as hashrate, energy sourcing, and production—into investor-focused reporting and governance.

Childs will move to chief operating officer, keeping responsibility for day-to-day performance while Leverton steps in to lead the company through the market-facing phase of the transaction.

Operating footprint and production levels

Fortitude’s scale remains anchored in dedicated power infrastructure. The miner operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites located in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas and New York. The geographic spread can be important for operational resilience, particularly in mining where downtime and electricity costs directly affect profitability.

On output, Fortitude reported that it mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026. The company says this amounted to roughly 28% of the network’s total production during the period—an indicator of its role in Zcash block production and the size of its contribution to circulating issuance.

Financially, Fortitude reported $20.9 million in revenue for the second quarter. Those figures, coupled with its production share, will likely be scrutinized as part of the merger process, because investors typically expect clarity on the relationship between hashrate, power utilization, and revenue over time.

New mining hardware expected to boost equihash hashrate

Fortitude is also expanding capacity through additional equipment procurement. In July, the company agreed to purchase 9,000 Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro machines. The deal is expected to add 7.56 GSol/s of equihash hashrate, with shipments expected in the fourth quarter.

For a network that relies on equihash-based proof-of-work, incremental hashrate growth is a key operational lever. It can influence how quickly Fortitude can convert capital expenditures into production output—especially if network difficulty and electricity prices remain stable. Still, readers should note that the real economic impact will depend on installation timing, power costs at each site, and how Zcash difficulty adjusts as more hashrate comes online.

Fortitude, which has been mining ZEC since 2019, also launched as a vertically integrated mining platform in 2025. With that setup, the company’s stated goal appears to be tightening control over the full operational chain—power sourcing, mining operations and scaling—while positioning itself for greater visibility in the public markets.

ZEC rally gains momentum as Paradigm discloses holdings

While Fortitude navigates corporate and capacity developments, Zcash’s token has been drawing fresh attention. ZEC continued to rally on Thursday, trading around $1,424, according to CoinGecko. The token’s move has been dramatic: it is up about 185% over the past 30 days and more than 2,600% over the past year, CoinGecko data shows.

The latest upside pressure was linked to a disclosure from Paradigm. In a report referenced by Cointelegraph, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang said Wednesday that the crypto investment firm holds ZEC and is an investor in the Zcash Open Development Lab. Huang described Zcash as a “private complement to Bitcoin” and argued that long-term funding for privacy technology is increasingly important as artificial intelligence and quantum computing advance.

The narrative is relevant beyond price action. Zcash’s development model includes an inflation-funded developer fund, and that structure has historically been central to how the project argues it can sustain privacy research over time. In other words, investor backing for the ecosystem can reinforce confidence in ongoing work—at least from the standpoint of market participants focused on long-run technical viability.

Broader performance in privacy coins has also been notable. As of Sept. 6, data cited by Glassnode indicates the privacy sector was up 213% from Bitcoin’s October 2025 peak, while other sectors tracked by Glassnode were still below that level at the time. Glassnode data further attributed 62% of the privacy sector’s market capitalization to ZEC, while a cap-weighted basket of privacy tokens excluding ZEC was still up 85% over the year, according to the same figures shared by Glassnode on X.

For traders and investors, the key watchpoint is whether these catalysts—continued institutional visibility into privacy infrastructure and sustained network participation by miners—translate into durable demand rather than short-lived speculative momentum.

As Fortitude heads toward its proposed HeartSciences merger and hardware shipments approach later in 2026, market participants will likely focus on the timing of public-market steps, the company’s ability to convert added hashrate into consistent production, and how ZEC’s recent momentum holds up alongside ongoing disclosures about privacy-focused investment.