Zcash miner Fortitude names former Hut 8 chief Jaime Leverton CEO ahead of Nasdaq deal

Fortitude Mining Holdings said it has appointed Jaime Leverton as chief executive officer, with her start date set for Sept. 21. She will replace Andrea Childs, who will remain with the company as chief operating officer. Fortitude said Leverton will continue as CEO after the company’s proposed combination with Nasdaq-listed HeartSciences is completed, at which point the merged company would take the Fortitude name and expect to trade under the ticker TUDE. The proposed merger, first announced in June, is projected to close in the fourth quarter, subject to shareholder approvals and customary closing conditions. Company estimates cited an implied valuation for the combined entity of at least $400 million, calculated from HeartSciences’ current share price and the shares expected to be issued to Fortitude’s owner, Digital Currency Group, and HeartSciences’ preferred shareholders. Fortitude, spun out of Foundry’s self-mining business by Digital Currency Group in January 2025, has concentrated its operations on the Zcash network. The company said it mined 72,696 ZEC in the first six months through June — roughly 28% of the network’s total production during that period — and reported $20.9 million in revenue for the second quarter. Fortitude operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas and New York. Leverton joins Fortitude after leading institutional digital-asset manager ReserveOne and previously serving as CEO of bitcoin miner Hut 8, where she oversaw that company’s merger with US Bitcoin Corp. and its relocation to U.S. domicile. Fortitude described itself as a “venture mining” platform that allocates capital across proof-of-work networks while maintaining a primary focus on Zcash; it is wholly owned by Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group. The appointment comes as the ZEC token has climbed more than 2,000% over the past year, with an approximately $21 billion market capitalization.