Fortitude Mining has appointed Jaime Leverton, former CEO of Bitcoin miner Hut 8, as chief executive officer. Leverton will assume the role on September 21, succeeding Andrea Childs, who will transition to chief operating officer.
The leadership change comes as Fortitude prepares for a public listing through a proposed merger with HeartSciences. The combined company is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker TUDE, subject to approval, with the transaction anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.
At Hut 8, Leverton oversaw the Bitcoin miner's merger with US Bitcoin Corp. and its transition into a US-domiciled Nasdaq-listed company.
Fortitude's Operations and Growth
Fortitude, which is wholly owned by Digital Currency Group, has mined Zcash since 2019 and launched as a vertically integrated mining platform in 2025. The company mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026, representing approximately 28% of the network's total production during that period.
In the second quarter, Fortitude reported revenue of $20.9 million. The miner operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, and New York.
In July, Fortitude agreed to purchase 9,000 Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro machines, expected to add 7.56 GSol/s of equihash hashrate, with shipments anticipated in the fourth quarter.
Zcash Market Performance
Zcash's native token, ZEC, has experienced significant price gains. As of early September, ZEC was trading around $1,424, having gained approximately 185% over the preceding 30 days and more than 2,600% over the past year.
Recent gains followed disclosure by Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang that the crypto investment firm holds ZEC and is an investor in the Zcash Open Development Lab. Huang characterized Zcash as a private complement to Bitcoin and expressed support for its inflation-funded developer fund.
Over the past year, privacy-focused cryptocurrencies as a sector have outperformed the broader crypto market. As of September 6, the sector was up 213% from Bitcoin's October 2025 peak, while all other crypto sectors tracked by Glassnode remained below their levels at that time. ZEC accounted for 62% of the privacy sector's market capitalization.
